Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Wallace Shawn’s THE FEVER, starring Lili Taylor, wavers between reckoning and self-flagellation

• By drediman
• October 15, 2021
• No Comments

This fall, Audible Theater, in a co-production with The New Group, returns to in-person performances at the Minetta Lane Theatre with a limited two-week run of Wallace Shawn’s solo show The Fever starring recognizable television and film star Lili Taylor and directed – with tasteful minimalism – by Scott Elliott (The New Group’s artistic director). Mr. Shawn has long been one of downtown New York theater’s most idiosyncratic talents, and I still have vivid memories of watching his plays The Designated Mourner, Grasses of a Thousand Colors, and Evening at the Talk House. Written in 1990, The Fever was originally performed by Mr. Shawn, who used it as a platform to wrestle with the dubious origins of the world’s socio-economic disparity.

Told through the lens of a fictitious narrator who starts to question their privilege – and their fundamental right to it – during their travels in an unspecified foreign country, the monologue goes down an intellectual rabbit hole that wavers between reckoning and self-flagellation. If you’re familiar with Mr. Shawn’s work, you know that decisions don’t come easily to his characters, often leaving them in ingratiating stalemates. Although this may frustrate some, the pungency of Mr. Shawn’s writing and the striking imagery that he conjures to animate his worlds make for intoxicating theater. These traits are very much evident in the ever timely The Fever, though the omission of race from the conversation seems a bit off-point, especially in this day and age.

Although I haven’t seen Mr. Shawn perform The Fever, I could see how he would be a fitting conduit for it, given the actor/playwright’s distinctively smarmy disposition and natural bent towards intellectual rigor. Ms. Taylor, on the other hand, registers as genuinely sweet – even naive – which changes the dynamic of the play considerably. In her hands, the play aims to devastate in a less convoluted manner, and it largely does (the evening I attended, Ms. Taylor seemed a tad tentative in a few passages, which I’m sure will be alleviated with a few more performances under her belt). Indeed, there’s one stretch in the play where she unsparingly calls out our collective decision to turn a blind eye to the realities of the world order, and it’s downright frightening to behold coming from the typically demure actress.

RECOMMENDED

THE FEVER
Off-Broadway, Play
Minetta Lane Theatre / Co-produced by Audible Theater and The New Group
1 hour, 30 minutes (without an intermission)
Through October 31