Just saw Adam Rapp’s play Dreams of Flying, Dreams of Falling.  I call it Buried Child meets The Cocktail Party.

I love the words. They move from the amusing party chatter of rich white people to fierce poetic visions. The clash of language gets reinforced by things like geese thumping into the house and being carried into the glowing dining room as sad feathery masses. The final image is even creepier than that.

Usually I don’t like plays where the language flaunts itself; where the writer wants us all to see how poetic s/he can be. Here, linguistic dissonance makes the poetry work.

On one level, this is about how rich white people take from everyone else and get their just, if weird, comeuppance.  On another level, the internal angst of us well-off folks gets translated into strange images that don’t immediately make sense—except on a visceral level.

Rapp and director Neil Pepe use lots of standard stage business to underline the ordinary—you know, where the guy is just about to drink the poison when something distracts him. Christine Lahti, as the fierce cougar Sandy Cabot, turns in a brilliant performance. All her outrageous actions come from someplace deep inside, so we see that something awful drives her. 

I mean this as a review of the words, not the actors, all of whom are great, or the production, equally good.  So check it out for yourself. The Atlantic Theatre Company at Classic Stage Company, New York City, closing October 30.