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Disclaimer:
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Peer Reviews
Mary's Wedding: Secrets of the
Heart, Kept Well in Mind
By Todd Zeigler
Entire contents are copyright © 2007,
Todd Zeigler. All rights reserved.
Mary's Wedding, the latest offering from Actors Theatre,
the crown jewel of Louisville theatre, is a love
story which unfolds in the setting where the emotion is perhaps most vivid:
in dreams.
Playwright Stephen Massicotte takes us inside the
mind of his title character the night before her
wedding. Her story "begins at the end and ends
at the beginning" as she flashes back through
time, space, and her own imagination as she relives
her first and one true love.
Massicotte uses the malleability of the slumbering
mind to sail a stream of consciousness that moves
more like raging rapids. Mary, played with the
enchanting joy of a girl discovering her womanhood
by Nell Geisslinger, leads the way through a mental
labyrinth where the simplest utterance or motion
can be the dime on which to about-face. We first
discover her as she discovers Charlie (Will Rogers),
a sweetly innocent and awkward farmboy taking cover
from a frightening thunderstorm. Mary eases Charlie's
nerves by reciting poetry with him.
It is the first of many storms they will weather
together. Charlie must contend with Mary's mother,
newly over from the high society of Great Britain,
who disapproves of Mary's taking so readily
to a dust-covered "colonist." They
face their own trepidation at these new feelings
emerging.
But young love blossoms quickly. Mary teaches Charlie
poetry and invites him to his first afternoon of
tea. Charlie is a serene, strong horseman, giving
him the steadiness (or convenient lack of saddle
space) to be close to Mary. Her feelings are pure;
his, simple. Their courtship is amusing, a see-saw
act of initiative, and swift.
Then, The Great War begins. Charlie is off with
the other fresh-faced patriotic Canadians to fight
in Europe. They say goodbye one last time as his
boat departs, harmonious in spirit and voice: "I'm
gonna marry that (boy/girl)." We
later learn their goodbye was not so simple, a
key reason for the lucidity of Mary's dreams.
Massicotte takes us back and forth between the
cultivation of the young lovers‚ relationship
in Canada and the battlefields of Europe with rapid-fire
cues and cuts that are a mindbending exercise in
the power of suggestion. A word, a gesture, a letter
from the front lines, real or imagined, tugs Mary
and Charlie back and forth between times and locations.
The orders Charlie receives, the words said and
unsaid by both, take the dream on to its inevitable
end "at the
beginning," where it will start again the
next night. Could anything end the never-ending
dream? Only the answer to that question will allow
Mary to wake up and do what she has to do.
Geisslinger and Rogers are simply wonderful to
watch onstage and marvelous additions to the prestigious
roster of talent that has graced the stage at Actors.
Rogers is in every nuance the simple farmboy: a
quivering lanky man-child around Mary, a staid
hand at his chores and with his beloved steed.
Love and combat visibly vex him. He never met such
confounding matters at work in the fields.
Geisslinger is in every way a dream girl. She radiates
class and refinery, but knows no system of class
which should separate her from Charlie. When stepping
into the role of Charlie's field sergeant
in the trenches, the masculine airs she acquires
with a mere swing of the arms and jut of the chin
lend an unobtrusive humor to the moment. The humor
is disarming for the emotional trials that soon
follow. She and Rogers have an irresistible chemistry
throughout.
Marc Masterson, Actors Theatre's Artistic Director,
provides steady and easy direction to Massicotte's
mental maze. He steers the flutter-of-an-eye scene
changes with masterful blocking and shifts of mood,
never allowing a moment of confusion into the flow
of action. He utilizes Scenic Designer Paul Owen's
minimal staging to make scene changes rapid, keeping
the emphasis on the characters' winding
journey. Brian J. Lilienthal's lighting and
Matt Calahan's
sound design fill the Bingham Theatre with the
very stuff of dreams, creating truly startling
thunderstorms or speckling the stage with hypnotic
starlight (doubling as the disoriented effect of
shellshock). Every moment is pure mood, emotionally
effusive.
As a story, Mary's Wedding is
nothing new: a tale of young lovers discovering
themselves and each other as greater forces pull
them apart. The narrative, action, and ultimate
resolution are neither manipulative nor unpredictable.
One knows the destiny of these young lovers well
before it is revealed. But the house lights still
rose on dozens of teary eyes.
Observing this story unfold in the privacy of the
dimly-lit audience opens up a place within the
heart that believes absolutely in the truth of
the power of a first love. It is a place preserved
for something much like the porcelain figures within
the snow globe adorning the program cover — an
encapsulated memory of a precious, deeply personal
moment. Coaxing that memory, shaking up the contents,
does not disturb it. It only makes it more precious.
Mary's Wedding
by Stephen Massicotte
directed by Marc Masterson
At Actors Theatre
January 2-February 3
316 W. Main St.
Louisville, Ky 40202
www.actorstheatre.org
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