'Marriage' wows
By JAMES D. WATTS JR. World Scene Writer
1/23/2006
Trio of actresses give this production sly wit
"Boston Marriage" is a deliciously, deliriously artificial -- a Rube Goldberg device built entirely out of words.
That's the case with just about any play by David Mamet, who puts words together with a precise panache that is rare in contemporary theater.
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Monica Barczak (left) and Kristi Bush star in Heller Theatre's "Boston Marriage."
ROBERT S. CROSS / Tulsa World |
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The characters and the situations in Mamet's plays may smack of reality, but the action -- the way these characters talk their way into and out of these situations -- is beautifully unreal. Nobody talks the way people in Mamet's plays talk, but when that talk is done well, it is absolutely convincing.
It can also be hilarious, as it is in Heller Theatre's production of "Boston Marriage," which opened Thursday at the theater, 5328 S. Wheeling Ave.
This 1999 play is a rare foray into pure comedy for Mamet, in which the writer known for such hard-boiled dramas as "Glengarry Glen Ross" and "American Buffalo" takes the drawing room comedy by the scruff of its Victorian-era neck and gives it a hearty, and very contemporary, shake.
To wit: A woman waits to welcome home a lover who decamped some time ago. Said lover, however, is in love with a much younger someone, and has returned to enlist the woman's help in
staging a romantic rendezvous. This leads to reversals of fortune.
The fact that all the participants in this triangle are women is almost beside the point, as director Devin Meadows has staged the play. He and his trio of actresses keep the focus entirely on the arch yet rapid-fire dialogue and the slyly witty comedy it contains.
Make no mistake -- this is one funny play, and the cast serves up these dense monologues and ping-ponging banter with grand style.
Kristi Bush does an excellent job as the hyper-loquacious Anna, determined at least to keep her lover under her roof if she can't have her undivided love. Her self-possession is rarely shaken, whether needlessly berating her maid (Kaycee Johnson) or conniving an elaborate ruse involving fortune-telling and funny hats.
She's well-matched by Monica Barczak as Claire, whose passion for an unseen, unnamed young thing has led to all this trouble. Barczak affects a wry, cool tone for Claire that neatly undercuts some of Anna's more flowery flights of verbal fancy.
Johnson, as the much put-upon Catherine the maid, can communicate volumes with a roll of her eyes. When she is able to get a word in edgewise between Bush and Barczak, she invests each line with below-stairs sauciness, deft comic timing and a neat trace of a Scottish accent.
While the play is set in turn-of-the-20th-century times, the language isn't always what one expects from the period. The women occasionally indulge in a spot of modern-sounding cursing -- a sprinkling of four-letter words that startle you into laughing.
The only thing that would have made these two performances better would be if Bush and Barczak allowed a little more of the desperation and pain of these two characters to break through the genteelly brittle facade Claire and Anna strive to maintain.
When Anna says "You have broken my heart," or Claire bemoans "age, age, dreadful age," these sentiments should sting rather than serve simply as transitions to the next witty line.
There's nothing wrong with playing "Boston Marriage" strictly as a comedy of very bad manners. It is completely enjoyable that way. But it robs the play of some of its depth, of providing a glimpse of the humanity underpinning these love-lorn women.
"Boston Marriage" continues with performances at 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday at Heller Theatre. For tickets, call 746-5065.
James D. Watts Jr. 581-8478
james.watts@tulsaworld.com
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