Find an event
Dental Society Midwinter Meeting
Dental Society Midwinter Meeting
On the surface, Jacqmin’s play is exactly as advertised: a guided day-by-day tour of a professional society’s convention, a play very specifically about dentists that’s set very specifically at the Skokie Marriott. It contains mandatory plenary sessions, a lesson in the proper way to brush your teeth and a ranting monologue about patients’ lazy aversion to flossing. But this convention is also a convention-breaker. In Shuchman’s creative staging, the new piece touches on group dynamics, professional ethics, upper-middle-class anxiety, the human desire for connection and, I suspect, the disappointments of the Obama administration.
If it sounds as though I’m projecting too much onto Jacqmin’s play, you haven’t seen how clever and nuanced her chosen metaphor proves. Scandal is afoot at this year’s Midwinter Meeting, as it’s been revealed that the society’s beloved, infallible president has been not only having an affair with his hygienist but—the real shock—letting her perform procedures without a license. We track the proceedings at ground level, guided by the collective narration of the dentists (Shuchman’s pliant, outstanding cast of six seamlessly switches among mostly anonymous characters).
As we follow the dentists from late-night gossip at Panera to a thoroughly endearing, audaciously extended karaoke sequence, they struggle with their desire to regain trust in failed leadership and in themselves—with what it means, exactly, to “be a part of the solution.” The ability of this skilled young playwright and remarkable actors to find moments of humanity in a seemingly sterile environment will give you plenty to chew on.
