Department of Dreams
Reviewed by Julia Lloyd George
City Garage Theatre
Through December 8
On its surface, Department of Dreams promises to be an assuredly compelling production. It’s the work of prolific Kosovar playwright Jeton Neziraj, whose career has been built on political dramas with a focus on authoritarian governments. It’s described as an “Orwellian comedy” whose protagonist, like Winston of 1984, works in a government department designed to ensure the public’s conformity to the rules of the state. Apparently inspired by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Neziraj even delves into moments of magical realism and dream sequences that inevitably reveal characters’ true feelings about their dystopian nation. I was truly intrigued to see a play dealing with the mysteries of dreams and the unconscious, a typically private realm that becomes commodified and dissected under the grip of a grim dictatorship. It’s a genuinely exciting premise.
Despite all this propitious material, however, the play fails to say anything new, develop characters beyond the limits of caricature, or even be particularly funny. Its protagonist, Dan (John Logan), starts out as a naïve and overeager new employee at the Department of Dreams, where it is his job to interpret the dreams that various low-level citizens have “deposited.” His unctuous supervisor, known simply as Official (David E. Frank), informs him that his predecessor, Shortleg (Gifford Irvine), was a highly valued interpreter that mysteriously flew away one night and never came back. Dan doesn’t consider this to be ominous at all, apparently, even though he has access to Shortleg’s diaries and receives cautionary visits from him reminiscent of the ghosts from A Christmas Carol.
Though Dan expresses concerns about the department’s torture methods on his very first day, he does not follow through on his concerns until about three quarters into the play. In fact, he continues to excel at his job quite happily, interrupted only by an incredibly superficial romantic subplot featuring an actress, Night (Angela Beyer), who agrees to kiss him once he promises to help her get a job. By the time Dan re-introduces his ideas about reform, the bosses have already decided to keep an eye on him, simply because of his dream-interpreting prowess and perceived arrogance. Eventually, they manage to uncover “evidence” in the form of Dan’s suspiciously anti-authoritarian dream.
Within this simplistic narrative, Dan’s character remains frustratingly static and passive. His interest in reform does not seem to be animated by any personal necessity and is only a topic that he brings up fairly casually on two occasions. He seems genuinely passionate about his work and does not even acknowledge any problems with the government to the one character outside his department, Night. I couldn’t help but feel this was a wasted opportunity to see a different side of Dan that he might not be able to show at work. The issue is, he doesn’t seem to have many different dimensions at all; instead, he’s a genuinely earnest worker that has been miscast as a revolutionary merely because of a dream and an apparently forbidden love affair.
There is undeniably great potential here to tell the story of a well-meaning everyman who falls into the inevitable traps of an oppressive government — yet the protagonist is consistently blank and there are no other characters that really merit our emotional investment. Moreover, the ending is a complete cop-out, favoring facile fantasy over the cruel reality of the situation. It caps off an ostensibly seductive yet ultimately desultory production that could use a couple of firm feet on the ground.
City Garage Theatre at Bergamot Station, T1 Space, 2525 Michigan Ave., Santa Monica; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m.; through Dec. 8. (310) 453-9939 or www.citygarage.org. Running time: one hour and 40 minutes with no intermission.
