Uncomfortably Alive: A Fever Dreams Review

Lana Young and Tim DeKay in Fever Dreams at TheaterWorks Hartford

TheaterWorks Hartford kicks off its 24/25 season with a gripping production of Jeffrey Leiber’s Fever Dreams, directed by Rob Ruggiero. Set present day, somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, Fever Dreams pulls at the threading of the ties that bind in the tangled mess that is the connection between characters. This production explores the emotional range of grief, and the animalistic tendencies of human survival that give truth to the idea that, “it's not love on which the strongest foundations are built. It's the decency of merciful lies.”

Zach (Doug Savant as seen in Melrose Place, 24, and The X-Files) is a medical doctor whose upbringing muddies the waters of his adult life. Adele (NAACP Image Award Nominee Lana Young) is an environmentalist with a compulsion for structure, definition, and cleanly defined lines. Miller (Tim DeKay White Collar and Oppenheimer) is a musician, living the high life, from a world view that has never been reassessed from the course his college moments set his life on. The three make up a love triangle in bad shape—a fragile dynamic comprised of 3 barely stable pillars, of which Adele pulls the strings of their through line.

Zach’s good guy image is at war with his heart’s greatest desire as he grows unsatisfied with his role as the alternate timeline for the woman he loves. Savant is a delicate balance between a stoic shoulder to lean on and a heart-on-sleeve with an image that was broken long before the doors began to fall off of their hinges. Adele is a split image of immersed and avoidant. Young delivers with graceful fluidity the conflicting traits of Ads, Addy, and Adele, teetering between intentionally constructed visions of alternative truths, the environmental constraints of her professional life that allows her just so nature to flourish, and the collapsing bridge of her real life. Miller is a museum of his past self, battling the awareness of time and reality closing in. DeKay brilliantly weaves together pockets of comedic relief with the very fabric of Miller’s grief nodding to Thalia and Melpomene, the comic and tragic faces of drama.

Leiber’s exposition brilliantly winds up the three central characters, testing the strength of Maslow’s theory of the force that is human need. The hierarchy serving as the crucible by which bonds are fortified or broken. Under Ruggiero’s direction, even the dynamics between Adele and Zach’s Act I, Zach and Miller’s Act II, and Miller and Adele’s Act III tell a story. Alejo Vietti and Joseph Shrope’s costume design further characterizes the ensemble. Miller, reminiscent of the aged rockstar while Adele and Zach’s wardrobes are more grounded in their maturity.

Luke Cantarella’s set design is a romantic and beautifully realistic, clandestine cabin in the woods—serving as the perfect backdrop for the isolation that is carrying the grief of regret against the hope of free will. Sherrice Mojgani’s lighting design plays against the progression of shared truths and the idea that “truth without mitigation is a black hole”— starting out as a single light above a stove, growing until all that’s done in the dark can no longer withstand the light of the day. Accented by the original music and sound design of Lindsay Jones.    

Fever Dreams is the perfect production to kick off a new season and the perfect way to celebrate Connecticut’s 2nd annual Theatre Week. Theatergoers are still discussing opening night.

For tickets, visit https://twhartford.org/ before the run ends on November 3rd.