Mary, Mary: Good Cast and Director Grapple with an Outdated Show
Photo: T.H. Wall
If one looks at lists of theatrical hits of the 1950s and 1960’s in New York , one finds plays by Tennessee Williams (Baby Doll, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof), Eugene O’Neil (Long Day’s Journey into night), Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett’s dramatization of The Diary of Anne Frank, one of the most successful works of the season, not to mention Lorraine Hansberry’s ground breaking drama A Raisin in the Sun, and the Leonard Bernstein Musical West Side Story (1957), all productions that made theatre history. In the 1960’s, the big hits of the Broadway stage were musicals: Hair, Mame, Man of the Mancha, Fiddler on the Roof and the list goes on. It would seem then rather strange to speak of Broadway hits when locating Jean Kerr’s work Mary, Mary among the plays that defined the “Golden Age of the American Stage “ (New York ) of the 1950s or 1960’s.
No doubt, the earlier mentioned works are problematic because none of them are comedies, and more to the point, none of them would appear to suit the taste of a summer theatre audience. I do think, however, if the Classic Theatre Festival wants to make a serious name for itself , it had better rethink its choice of plays and not pander to the portion of its audiences that can’t hack adult theatre.
That doesn’t mean every single play has to be heavy, and serious and thought provoking or even ground breaking but it does mean that at least one play should enlighten us in some way, no matter what the “theme” of the summer season may be.
Mary Mary, played for several years on Broadway in the 1960s, (reviews were not unanimous by the way) but it certainly has not stood the test of time and today, it appears to be a terribly dated show. This is unfortunate because the cast was very good and Laurel Smith did what she could with this mindless script that did not at all allow Rachel Jones (the Mary of the title) and her colleagues to deal with the deep seated difficulties at the origin of a divorce that tears a couple apart in spite of itself. The play is apparently supposed to question, among other things, the way beauty and intelligence come into conflict as far as the success of a woman is concerned. It is also a study of Mary’s complex image of herself. The subject was treated with flippant one liners, silly jokes and dilly dallying as both Bob and Mary his soon to be ex-wife find themselves thrust into a situation where they have to realize the inevitable: they were made for each other. The problem is that the play is so impeccably constructed, with the two women (Mary and the new girlfriend Tiffany) and the two men (husband Bob and the neighbout Dirk the actor ) playing perfectly antithetical characters, that we know exactly how it will all end after the first 15 minutes into the play.
Act one was especially annoying as it shuffled along, jumping from Publisher Bob’s dislike of Dirk’s badly written manuscript about his life in the cinema, to Bob’s disastrous financial situation that his accountant friend Oscar tries to explain. The first part especially was, full of clichés, New York theatre “in jokes” that were particularly lame, and many other self-conscious attempts to be funny that failed badly. Act two livened up a lot. As Bob’s neighbour, the aging movie star Dirk, becomes interested in Mary, Bob’s soon to be ex, jealousy rears its ugly head. A contrived situation about spending a night in Bob’s apartment adds to the confusion and it all gets very agitated after Bob mistakes aspirin for sleeping pills and keeps dozing off. However, what is more interesting is the way Dirk, with a little bit of kindness, elicits Mary’s life story and brings in some pop psychology which helps us understand why Mary is so tough minded, so cutting, so self-depreciatory and thus has difficulty with men.
The interaction between Alastair Love (Dirk) and Rachel Jones (Mary) worked particularly well at that point and showed moments of very good acting and stage business that director Laurel Smith orchestrated. There was anger, frustration and confusion! We see Bob crumpling to the floor as the sleeping pills take their effect, and a whole chorus line of people trying to convince Mary to make the right decision about her future as the action races on. It quickly slid into near farce but the director deftly avoided any overacting, handled it beautifully and even created some moments of classy comedy. Heather Sande as Tiffany, Bob’s new girlfriend he is about to marry, becomes a cross between Betty Boop, and Marilyn Monroe the perfect 1950’s icon who really isn’t quite as ditsy as we think she is when she reveals her own feelings in the second part of the show. I’m giving the director the benefit of the doubt here by assuming she purposely created Tiffany that way, as a sign of the period.
It was also a sign that this show might have worked a lot better if they had done it all as a stylistic parody of itself and of the period, bringing in a lot more playful ironic distance in all their performances. After all, any feminist pretext that one might presume to find in this play is so thin that it becomes a caricature of itself and can only be treated as a parody. That would have been a lot more fun.
The opening night audience in the packed theatre, laughed, and clapped and seemed to enjoy it immensely. However, there seems to be no doubt at all that the Festival will have to give some very serious thought to its future choice of plays if it wants to attract broader audiences and take this Classic Theatre venture any further.
Mary Mary plays at the Perth & District Collegiate Institute, 13 Victoria Street. Parking is free on the premises and on the street. Call 1-877-283-1283 for tickets and information.