Theater: “Swing State” at the Minetta Lane Theater

You won’t hear many overtly political references in “Swing State,” the new drama by Rebecca Gilman (in previews at the Minetta Lane Theater). Nor will you initially understand why a production about birds and prairie grass makes for a good evening in the theater.

But by the end of the play, the playwright will have you eating out of her hand.

Peg (Mary Beth Fisher) is a 60-ish widow living in rural Wisconsin. She acts as a surrogate mother to Ryan (Bubba Weiler), a 20-something neighbor and troubled ex-convict. Peg wants some alone time with Ryan to explain why she’s writing a will and why she wants to leave her house to him—and the surrounding prairie to a nature preservation society, rather than let it be farmed. (She hates pesticides.)

Peg then finds some of her late husband’s tools—including his Winchester rifle—are missing. She reports the robbery to the local police. Seems though that robber would have to know where they were kept, and the only person that would have known was Ryan. Did he do it ? And what was his motive?

Two policewomen show up, guns a-blazing. The bullying Sheriff Kris (Kirsten Fitzgerald) is sure Ryan is the culprit, but she may have an axe to grind, believing Ryan may have had something to do with her son’s death. The younger deputy Dani (Anne E. Thompson) is the sheriff’s inexperienced niece who’s finally found her calling as a police officer. “I like helping people,” she says.

It’s a slow but steady burn to the climax as we discover who the real thief is. But it’s not without violence and sadness.

The actors hail from the original production at the Goodman Theater in Chicago and are further testament that the Second City is a wellspring of talent. While all four cast members are excellent, the real standout is young Bubba Weiler as Ryan. His performance calls to mind Humphrey Bogart’s Duke Mantee in the 1935 movie “The Petrified Forest.”

As for the title “Swing State”? If you read into it, you can assume Peg and her late husband are liberal tree-huggers and the senior cop is a Trumper. And Wisconsin is a purple state. But don’t dig any deeper than that. Just enjoy it for the complex, and exquisitely written, story that it is.

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