NIGHTSWIMMING
"Triumphant Success"
Starring: Jeff Keilholtz (Chris), Jason Kirsch (Danny), Vanessa Shealy (Suzy), and Chris Cardona (Benny)
Downtown Manhattan, four floors up, a 200 square foot stage is home to heartache. Its simple set as complete as the story that unfolds upon it: love, loss, betrayal, murder. No, we’re not talking Shakespeare; although I think William himself would applaud this one-act masterpiece that opened at the Access Theater in NY (March 9, 2005).
Producer Michael Sargent and Director Daniel Horrigan brought playwright and star Jeff Keilholtz’s work to the stage, unveiling a dark look into the bleak existence of its cast; the blackness of their hearts; the bloodshot of their mourning eyes as they drown in the depths of sorrow in Nightswimming.
Blackout - a telephone rings. An answering machine records the final words a young wife giggles to her husband. She and her sister enjoying their time together, “We’re just having too much fun!” she says unknowing that their fun, their lives, their marriages are about to come to an abrupt end, leaving behind two widowed husbands, their worlds turned completely upside down.
Lights up - Chris (Jeff Keilholtz) and Danny (Jason Kirsch), both NYC cops, have detached themselves from reality. Their only contact with each other, a phone call every 8th of every month, on the anniversary of their wives deaths, is their only pattern of constancy. Plagued with grief and haunted by regret, each of these men are dead within themselves, lifelessly living each day as it comes.
Chris Tucker, a plain-clothes detective with a promising future, has buried himself. Suffering with chronic insomnia and working his way through sleepless nights, he is lost. Caught in a self-inflicted spiral of cataleptic despair Chris abandons himself, only existing as a shadow lost in his own past and unable to see through his glassy eyes any hope for the future.
Danny Harper, deserting the law, recklessly shields his remorse behind a wall of furious lies and precarious liaisons. While his self-imposed duplicity shelters his grief, Danny forfeits his existence. Trampling through his anguish, without care of what or who he hurts in the process, he struggles to reconcile within himself the past he knows he can not change and destroys the future he feels he has lost control of.
Caught in the middle of distress and deception, Suzy (Vanessa Shealy) gets lost in their world of mourning. Benny (Chris Cardona), Chris’ partner, is misplaced in his own misfortune after losing a custody battle for his little boy. And in the 80 minutes that follow the lives of these sad souls collide; crashing into one another with such immense force and complete catastrophic consequence.
Written in a three night span of sleeplessness, Nightswimming exemplifies the excellence of black box theater or any theater for that matter; minimalist stories drenched in undertone merged with rigorous talent and the incredible desire to get it produced and shared with the theater-going community. Director Daniel Horrigan’s incredible vision is portrayed through exceptionally poignant performances. Each demonstrating an extraordinary depth of character; Chris’ hopelessness is written all over his face, caught in the teariness of his eyes and heard in the cracking of his voice. Danny devours desperation, washing it down with a glass of Jack Daniels and sweating out beads of anger and pain. And while their roles were supporting their capacities were leading, Suzy and Benny consistently added honest ability to the already existing tremendous bulk of it.
The Flow Magazine Review
Courtney Oates