In both of his plays soon to make their Bay Area debuts, Chicago playwright Philip Dawkins gives away the endings at the beginnings. In "The Homosexuals," the play proceeds in reverse chronological order, from 2010 to 2000, so the first scene is the ultimate result of the final scene. In "Failure: A Love Story," the very first line of the play is, "Nelly was the first of the Fail sisters to die," and it is soon revealed her two siblings would also die in the same year before we harken back to how lives were led before their untimely endings.
Dawkins is a young Chicago playwright whose career seems on the ascendant, and hometown critics have definitely stoked his rising reputation. "Hugely talented," said The Chicago Tribune of Dawkins in its review of "Failure." "Smart, funny, poignant, sharply observed, and up-to-date," said The Chicago Sun-Times in its review of "The Homosexuals."
" 'Humbling' may be overused, but it is pretty humbling and exciting," Dawkins said from Chicago about his overlapping introductions to Bay Area audiences. "Stylistically, they're very different," Dawkins said of "The Homosexuals" and "Failure." "But there's a question that's actually asked in both plays, so I think of them as second cousins. In "The Homosexuals," it's not whether or not we achieve our dreams, but the fact that we have and express them. And in "Failure," the question becomes, if you never achieve your goals, is that a failure, or was it a success just to have them?"
"The Homosexuals" arrives first, opening this week at New Conservatory Theatre Center. It centers on the story of Evan, who is breaking up with his boyfriend as the play opens in 2010. Each scene is then set back two years, as Evan interacts with a different member of the circle of friends he joined in the scene that ends the play in the year 2000. "My hope with the play was to explore a group of friends through the lens of sex," Dawkins said, "what it means to a friendship when sex is on the table or removed from the relationship, or when the feelings about sex are imbalanced."
The idea for the play, and the decision to present the scenes in reverse order, developed when Dawkins attended a party "with a whole gaggle of gays who were closer to each other than I was to them," he said. "I watched all night as they explained themselves, performing their histories for me. So at the beginning of the play, it's like, this is where we are now, and now let us perform for you how we got here. There is a lot of tension in the play about being there and getting there. 'We're here, we're queer.' But what does it really mean to be here?"
The wildly inclusive title "The Homosexuals" sets up any number of expectations that audiences have responded to in different ways. "A lot of people want it to be an angrier play, or want it to be a more active play," Dawkins said. "My attitude is, that's cool that it brought that out of you, but this is a play about existence, and not necessarily about the fight."
Dawkins recalled the words of director Bonnie Metzgar, who directed the play's debut production for Chicago's About Face Theatre in 2011. "She said, 'Philip, your play is an opinion magnet.' It was like the most extreme piece of prophecy, and it was so true."
One of the opinions it elicited came from Father Michael Garanzini, president of Loyola University, one of several Chicago schools where Dawkins is on the faculty. "He wrote me a very beautiful note, saying how much he identified as a priest with leaving his family and being thrown into this male-centric group, and being told this is your new family. I thought, whoa, I never thought of it as having anything to do with being a new priest. And then he commissioned me to write a new play."
Dawkins will be able to see a performance of "The Homosexuals" at NCTC as he also ventures to the Bay Area for the opening of "Failure: A Love Story" at Marin Theatre Company on June 10. First seen at Chicago's Victory Gardens Theater in 2012, "Failure" takes place as the 1928 household of the Fail family is presented in a lighthearted and, at times, almost vaudevillian spirit that belies the opening lines informing us of the deaths that will befall the young sisters in the story that then unfolds.
"People ask why I chose to start the play that way," Dawkins said. "I think that theater can provide us with wonderful moments of full life, and even though the characters may live happily ever after, what they don't say is, 'Until they die.' We can still care about these people's struggles and lives knowing that at the end of it they're all going to be dead, and that's okay, because that's the end of all of our stories. Every character expressly says what they want, and not one of them gets it, and yet it's a happy play because they leave behind a happy energy."
"The Homosexuals" will run at New Conservatory Theatre Center through June 28. Call 861-8972 or go to nctcsf.org. "Failure: A Love Story" will run June 5-29 at Marin Theatre Company. Call 388-5200 or go to marintheatre.org