Imagine sitting at the diner in Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks and striking up a conversation with one of the strangers there. That’s what happens in Air Mail C.O.O. Bill Keenan’s new one-act play, Spin Cycle, except the characters are not in a diner but in a dimly lit laundromat, and there’s a storm raging outside. “Aside from the mundanity of them, I think of laundromats as being transient types of places,” says Keenan. “You never know where people are coming from or going. There’s also a lot of waiting around, passing time.”
Spin Cycle has two characters: Elliot, an enigmatic young man who’s there to wash his whites, and Marge, the hardened owner of the business. The two start talking:
Marge: “Come stumbling into a laundromat at night carrying bags that look like they’ve been halfway to hell ’n’ gone.”
Elliot: “Maybe I just have bad luggage.”
Marge: “Bad luggage comes with bad choices, don’t it? You runnin’ from something?”
As the conversation goes on, it’s as if Elliot and Marge are playing a game—taking turns in the analyst’s chair. At points, he is vulnerable and on the ropes; at others, she turns inward, questioning her own hopes, choices, and loves: “I gave him everything I had. Every damn thing. And when it was too much for him, he left. Left me with a screamin’ baby I couldn’t care for and a bunch of unanswered questions.”
Something abstract and powerful is developing in the room as they speak. The mysterious authority of the rinsing, whirring machines has given way to the storm outside, which is moving figuratively into the laundromat. “I’m going for that feeling of simplicity and restraint. An element of isolation,” Keenan explains. “As far as main influences, Sam Shepard is at the top of the list—fractured families, mythic Americana, emotional trauma. The hallmark Shepard stuff.”
Keenan is best known for his 2016 memoir, Odd Man Rush, which tells the story of his journey as a Harvard hockey player who, hoping to work his way to the N.H.L., ships off to play in the decidedly less glamorous European minor leagues. The memoir was made into a funny and touching film, released in 2020. It, too, is a story of passing through strange spaces, but in Spin Cycle, the journey ends with revelation.
Spin Cycle is on at Hudson Guild Theater, in New York, until August 3. It will also go on at the Flea, in New York, as part of the Rogue Theater Festival, on August 10 at one P.M., four P.M., and seven P.M.
Jimmy Lux Fox is an Editorial Intern at AIR MAIL
