BY ANNE COLEMAN

In print | Published February 19, 2009

In 2008 he was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize, he has an Obie Award in playwriting and his newest work is currently playing at Broadway’s American Airlines Theater starring Mary-Louise Parker (“Weeds”), Peter Stormare (“Fargo,” “The Big Lebowski” and many more) and Broadway heavy-hitter Michael Cerveris. That said, if you don’t see a lot of theater or religiously read New York Times critic (and Swarthmore alum) Ben Brantley’s reviews, you probably haven’t heard the name Christopher Shinn.

Thirty-three year-old Shinn is an up-and-coming playwright who has studied with some of the greatest playwrights of our time, including Tony Kushner and Maria Irene Fornes, according to his representation at the New Dramatists Service. Kushner has praised him at length, saying “Chris Shinn explores politics and ethics without moralizing and finds justice and beauty in intimate life, keenly observed and rendered scrupulously, unapologetically, fearlessly. [His] plays are important and utterly original. I admire his work enormously.”

His latest play, an adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s “Hedda Gabler,” is the tenth of his plays to reach the public eye. Don’t let the limited supply get you down though – Philadelphia’s Amaryllis Theatre Company is performing one of his most critically acclaimed works, “Dying City,” through Feb. 22. With a mission of accessibility for all audiences, Amaryllis’ tickets will set you back less than one-sixth the price of the cheapest seats at “Hedda Gabler,” and having seen both, I can assure you that the Shinn experience is well represented in this unassuming production. The production is elegant in its simplicity and actors Pamela Sabaugh and Nathan Emmons authentically and sympathetically portray the weighty troubles of their characters with apparent ease.

The 10 year-old brain child of Mimi Kenney Smith, who also helped to found the Theatre Alliance of Greater Philadelphia, Amaryllis’ work surpasses any expectations you may have when confronted with the unornamented, unmarked black door in the wall that leads to the theater’s lobby. In fact, Ben Brantley might enjoy this down-to-earth production more than he seemed to enjoy “Hedda Gabler.”

Brantley called the new adaptation of “Hedda Gabler” “one of the worst revivals I have ever, ever seen,” and announced that he was “flummoxed” that such a creation could come from Shinn and the rest of the show’s creative team. Though I absolutely disagree, we do see eye-to-eye on one thing: as Brantley puts it, “Mr. Shinn is one of the absolute best of a new generation of American playwrights.”

As for Brantley’s critique of the show, I find myself flummoxed. I attended a preview of the show on Jan. 7, and I was delighted to find that Shinn’s changes to the text were right on the mark. He updates the play effectively but doesn’t slip into the trap of making it too psychological, which would be untrue to the original Norwegian text. The character of Hedda would certainly be a fascinating subject to examine, but such a change would be inappropriate and unwelcome. The play was written before the modern age of psychoanalysis, a fact that Mr. Shinn referenced in one of his interviews with The New York Times: apparently, “Freud learned Norwegian so he could read Ibsen.”

I do not doubt that Brantley views Ibsen’s work with the same high regard that Freud did, but his negative evaluation of the performances was excessive in my opinion. Parker’s performance is not “dead” as Brantley suggests, but rather a decidedly new approach to the character.

Her Hedda is a more huffy and transparent woman than most portrayals I’ve encountered, but the vague annoyance I feel with her character for those traits is a boon, not an obstacle, for the production. In any production that does Ibsen justice, Hedda is a vicious, vindictive, lazy, profligate, self-obsessed rhymes-with-witch, but the updates that Parker makes to Hedda make the character not only horribly fascinating, but also fun to watch. Her violent disregard for all things good and happy is enhanced for the audience by the emphasis on her daddy issues — something that was already very present in the play — that result from her inner petulant child.

Shinn is making great work, and his accomplishments are not diminished by the less than enthusiastic receipt of his new adaptation, or by Parker’s performance in the title role. His adaptation of “Hedda Gabler” is well worth seeing, and the production of “Dying City” closer to home should be taken as an invitation to enter the new generation of theater. Let us hope that when Shinn manages to bring his play, “Now or Later,” to the U.S. stage (it opened at the Royal Court in London), he receives the warm reception that he deserves.

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