Back in Chicago, Michael Shannon and David Schwimmer Michael Brosilow Michael Shannon, left, and Doug Vickers in "Simpatico," a Red Orchid Theater production directed by Dado. Mr. Shannon helped start the company. CHICAGO - Even when they leave the city that nurtured them to pursue careers in Hollywood or New York, actors, writers and directors who first tasted success in Chicago tend to return here to work. The city's fertile theater scene seems to inspire a deep-rooted loyalty in artists that never abates. Liz Lauren From left, Philip R. Smith, Beth Lacke and Eddie Martinez in "Big Lake Big City," written by Keith Huff and directed by David Schwimmer. This summer finds Michael Shannon, the Oscar-nominated actor also known for his role on HBO's "Boardwalk Empire," back home at the small company he helped start many years ago, A Red Orchid Theater, starring in a revival of Sam Shepard's "Simpatico" (1994). The small theater, tucked behind a Subway sandwich franchise in the Old Town neighborhood, seats about 75. As curtain time approaches, the line for returned tickets fills the entrance, making it hard for ticketholders to make their way in. Mr. Shannon plays Carter, who has unwillingly returned to Rancho Cucamonga, a town in Southern California, at the urgent request of an old friend and co-conspirator, Vinnie, played by Guy Van Swearingen, who is also a founder of A Red Orchid and its onetime artistic director. He also moonlights - or daylights? - as a local fireman. In the 15 years since Carter and Vinnie last saw each other, their fortunes have radically diverged. They parted ways in the wake of scandal: involved in fixing horse races, they also hatched a plan to blackmail the racing commissioner. Carter has since become a respectable fixture in the high-toned Kentucky horse set, and has been paying Vinnie money to lie low. Vinnie's been lying lower and lower: a part-time fabulist, he got in trouble with a girlfriend, Cecilia (Mierka Girten), after impersonating a cop - or so he tells the bewildered Carter. The play's terrific first act simmers with increasing tension, as the men size each other up, each unsure of how much loyalty he can count on after all these years. The lanky Mr. Shannon, his head practically scraping the theater's ceiling, imbues Carter with a combination of caginess, sympathy and exasperation, as he tries to ferret out exactly why Vinnie has demanded his presence: Does he really want Carter to sort out his love life, or does he have more dangerous motivations? Mr. Shannon's graven face, which looks carved from hard stone, registers little feeling as Carter spits questions and exhortations at Vinnie through barely parted lips. But Vinnie's wheedling evasions clearly get under his skin. When Carter's patience splinters, Mr. Shannon's gravelly baritone suddenly flares up into a screech. Beneath his temperate exterior, Carter is boiling at the thought that his orderly life could be thrown into disarray by this glum ghost from his past. As the luckless Vinnie, Mr. Van Swearingen, considerably shorter and portlier than Mr. Shannon, sports the saddest-looking combover I've ever seen - it's really a half-combover. He has the dazed aspect of a man who never recovered from the first blow life dealt him, and lumbers sadly around the room as he implores Carter to help him out. Mr. Shepard's dialogue crackles with bitter humor. Patiently trying to pump some life into his friend, Carter notes with dismay the piles of stinking laundry. "Gives you a bad impression of yourself," he says. "I don't need the laundry for that," Vinnie bleakly replies. Unfortunately, "Simpatico" doesn't sustain the quiet intensity of the first act through its later scenes, which move to Kentucky and back, as Vinnie goes on a quest to make amends for the damage he's done, or maybe take revenge for the damage he's sustained. The complicated back story about the blackmail plot remains murky and a little melodramatic, focusing as it does on a cache of lurid photos. And despite the intimacy of the Red Orchid space, the production, directed by Dado, mostly lacks emotional resonance. With too many of the supporting performances favoring style over substance, the play's quirks and reversals seem arbitrary and opaque. Mr. Shepard's dark sense of fate here feels put-on and inorganic, to the point that even Mr. Shannon's fine intensity cannot bring the final scene, in which Carter seems to be disintegrating before our eyes, to the proper pitch of surreal horror. The crowds are not as thick for "Big Lake Big City," a new play by Keith Huff at the Lookingglass Theater, possibly because the marquee name here - David Schwimmer - is not onstage but backstage, as the director. Mr. Schwimmer was a founding member of this company before he goofed his way to fame on "Friends." Mr. Huff is a Chicago-bred writer whose play "A Steady Rain," first produced here at a small theater, brought him national (and international) attention when it was presented on Broadway with Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman.