How to Transcend a Happy Marriage
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Cititour.com Review
A play that occasionally feels as unruly as its title, Sarah Ruhl’s “How to Transcend a Happy Marriage” now at Lincoln Center’s Mitzi Newhouse Theatre, is both a very funny and decidedly rueful examination about the challenges of long-term matrimony. Perhaps Ruhl’s most overtly comic work -- not to mention her most accessible one – the play nonetheless takes several unexpected (and possibly unnecessary) detours: from speeches about the evils of consumerism and the dominance of Amazon, explanations about the work of Pythagoras, flights of magic realist fancy, to a particularly sexy rendition of “She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain.”
That surprisingly salacious ditty is performed spectacularly by Tony Award winner Lena Hall, otherwise underused, as Pip, a free-spirited young woman who ethically slaughters her own meat and lives in a polyamorous relationship with two fellow bisexuals: the effete, sweet-natured David (Austin Smith) and the outspoken Freddie (David McElwee, who seems to have wandered in from a regional production of “Passing Strange”).
Essentially a plot device, Pip – and her unusual living situation -- fascinates not just her seemingly staid co-worker Jane (the excellent Robin Weigert), but also her husband Michael, a rock musician-turned-jingle writer (the fine Brian Hutchison), and especially their best friends, Paul (a welcome Omar Metwally), an architect who has become so disenchanted with redoing bathrooms that he has taken on the far less lucrative career of writing books about architectural theory, and his wife George (Marisa Tomei), a high school Latin teacher.
The foursome, who appear turned on simply by talking about polyamory during a friendly dinner, immediately invite the threesome to a New Year’s Eve party, where champagne is mixed with David’s hash brownies, and more happens (as one might expect) than a friendly game of Scrabble.
George is our play’s not-always-reliable narrator (and protagonist) and under Rebecca Taichman’s excellent direction, Tomei delivers one of the most riveting and multi-layered performances of her long career, whether she’s commanding center stage alone or blending into the ensemble. Ruhl also allows us to know George in a way that she denies the other characters, whether it’s revealing her religion (she’s Catholic), recalling an anecdote about disappointing her dying father, or letting her express explicitly how Paul’s decision to follow his dreams have negatively impacted her desire to do the same. Tomei also gorgeously delivers the show’s final, extended monologue, a particularly lovely bit of writing from Ruhl.
In one of the play’s stranger moments, a bird flies into Jane’s house and promptly lays three eggs in her hand. While Ruhl has a laid an egg or two in her career (I despised “Eurdyice”), this time, she’s simply given us food for thought and a lot of laughs.
By Brian Scott Lipton
Visit the Site
http://www.lct.org/shows/how-transcend-happy-marriage
Cast
Lena Hall, Brian Hutchinson, David McElwee, Omar Metwally, Naian González Norvind, Austin Smith, Marisa Tomei, Robin Weigert
Open/Close Dates
Opening 2/23/2017
Closing 5/7/2017
Box Office
212-239-6200
Theatre Info
Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater
150 West 65th Street
New York, NY 10023
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