The Harry Chapin song "Taxi" has been driving through my head ever since I watched Friday night's opening of "Shooting Star" at Park Square Theatre. Better that, I suppose, than Dan Fogelberg's schmaltzy "Same Auld Lang Syne."
Both songs play with the same trope that playwright Steven Dietz leans on in his two-person play — the unexpected reunion of old lovers.
Sally Wingert and Mark Benninghofen portray middle-age folks who meet by chance in an airport. They haven't seen each other in 25 years, we are told, since roaring out of college in Madison, Wis.
As you might guess, one of these characters has found hollow success in the world, while the other is more or less happy improvising her way through life's mixed salad. (You remember "The Big Chill," right?)
This dramatic setup is familiar because it works for audiences who enjoy being reminded that they once were young and a little reckless. It's comfortable, and Dietz has evoked the redolent nostalgia and regret that hang around our souls deep into middle age.
Wingert plays Elena Carson, a free spirit on her way to Boston to visit an equally free-spirited friend. Benninghofen's Reed McAllister, decked in suit and tie, grinds his teeth because he's been sent on what he suspects will be a fruitless sales trip in Texas.
Fate gives them one more ride on the merry-go-round when snow socks in the Midwestern airport where they are catching connecting flights.
Dietz doesn't have much new to say about this situation. Not that this is a requirement, but the play gives way too easily in the mind to other attempts at the same idea. This is why all I can hear is Harry Chapin singing, "She was gonna be an actress …"
