Polished, Touching ‘Swan’ Takes Flight

Dora (Beth Hogan), the lonely Nebraska nurse in Elizabeth Egloff’s”The Swan” at Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, dreams that her former lover never left for good but merely went to get a pack of cigarettes. “The drugstore was closed so he had to go to Paris,” she says.

Having lost a series of husbands and boyfriends, Dora clings to Kevin (Scott Allan Campbell), a married milkman and, in her words, “a great big debacle of a man.” But even as Kevin pressures her to run away with him, Dora finds herself attracted to someone else: a swan, taking the form of a handsome man (Andrew Philpot), who literally crashed into her window one night.

A fairy tale for adults, “The Swan” takes off from the Greek myth of Leda, who was visited by Zeus in the form of a swan. But the play touches the viewer, often in unexpected ways, because Egloff takes her own supremely controlled approach to the mysteries of eros. Her writing, while sometimes precious, manages a sense of both irony and yearning--no mean feat.

Director Marilyn Fox’s polished production is always alive to the text’s many possibilities. Kurt Wahlner’s set, depicting the interior of a sparsely furnished clapboard house, puts a heartland spin on spiritual isolation. The performances are similarly impressive, with Hogan’s wry, moving turn ably leading the cast.

* “The Swan,” Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., West Los Angeles. Wednesdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends Sept. 17. $17.50-$21.50. (310) 477-2055. Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes.