Fever/Dream

Loosely adapted from Calderon's Life is a Dream, a philosophical rumination on the nature of reality, the world premiere of Fever/Dream by Sheila Callaghan, continuing at the Woolly Mammoth (to 6/28), is a running offbeat commentary, sounding almost like a blog at times, of corporate greed, scheming, and ineptitude. A medley of genres - farce, noire, fantasy, social satire, screwball comedy, you pick-em - voices, and relationships are evoked to transpose this classic into a beyond, way beyond, postmodernist text of the 21st century. All the accoutrements of modern technological communication and then some are trotted out as the characters struggle for power and meaning.

At times funny, at times rambling, the show has a visually arresting look, and if it didn't have the audience rolling in the aisles, it had them laughing plenty, and leaving with thoughts of an entertaining night of theater. For those who are lamenting the loss of the younger crowd, they turned up in full force at the Woolly. This theater has definitely found the mother load for theater audience building: new plays with topical themes keep them coming and coming back for more.

Directed in the Woolley tradition at full throttle by Howard Shalwitz and excitingly choreographed by Meisha Bosma, Fever/Dream, gets the full star treatment from the talented cast and design team.

Imprisoned by his tycoon father in corporate hell - customer relations - Segis played with manic intensity by Daniel Eichner is about to get a reprieve from a guilty father in the form of a promotion to CEO. Stranger things have happened in the business world which is littered with bad, really bad decisions as you've noticed in recent times. Chained to his desk for years and looking every inch the unkempt Charles Manson, Segis meets Rose (Kimberly Gilbert) and Claire (Jessica Dukes), damsels-errant who are on a mission of corporate espionage and, like our economy, went down when they should have gone up.

When we next meet them, all have cleaned up their act, but not before dirty deeds man Fred Costaldo (Michael Willis) intervenes for the Trumpish Bill Basil (Drew Eshelman) who flips on where he is taking his company. A secondary plot emerges, mirroring the main story: Fred and Rose recognize a filial relationship of sorts, one that's been poisoned in the cradle, and there's a backstory with Rose that will be played out later. Into this cauldron are thrown the striving intermediaries, and opportunistic lovers, Stella Strong (Kate Eastwood Norris) and Aston Martin (KenYatta Rogers). The action jumps back and forth as Segis, then a Strong-Martin partnership struggle for power. An ensemble of 10 University of Maryland master class acting students round out the 17 member cast. The use of associates as an updated Greek chorus works well; they are ideally positioned to comment on and move the story along. It will develop that Rose, played with comic grace by Ms. Gilbert, has another claim on her affections, one that will realign the corporate and personal ties that bind.

It is good to see the accomplished Ms. Norris back - confident, intelligent, assertive, and funny - she can't be acting can she? - paired with her delightfully conniving co-conspirator Mr. Rogers who gives a Janus look to his character's efforts to reinvent himself.

Design elements were outstanding, starting with the metallic and out-of-kilter set by Misha Kachman of projectile skyscrapers and leaning elevator, effectively illuminated by Colin Bills during the many crises and moments of stage business, while the sound by Veronika Vorel nicely transformed the mood from the mellow (with Sinatra) to the maniacal.

Dramaturgically, I thought the plot and characterization strain somewhat in an effort to maintain a link to the structure of the earlier work. Without a philosophical underpinning, the absurdist world is just plain absurd at times. The function of Claire seems irrelevant: what's her purpose here? To provide comic relief?! Since you can expect a reworking of a new play, I would look at clarifying the secondary plot and the backstory of Rose and Aston, while considering minimizing or eliminating the part of Claire. I'd focus on using a genre or two to mine the allusions to Calderon's play. If conventional methods of tightening Fever/Dream did not work, I'd try adapting it to a musical, which I see from Ms. Callaghan's resume she's already created.

Before you leave the Woolly check out Michael Enn Sirvet's large metal wall art work The Chain of Xerxes, just off the lobby. Well lighted, the color arrangement of plates does give the feel of an army of shields rising up in battle; and inspired by the oldest extant play of Aeschylus, The Persians, is a suitable work for the theater (www.sirvet.com/works.php?id=68).

Sound check: Low to moderate, but extremely high sound levels at Segis' rap sequence and associates' rescue scene in Act II

Program notes: Good. Could have benefited from a Q & A with the playwright. Woolly continues the laudable practice of offering signed scripts to the general public at a reasonable price ($10)