“Romance Served Up
Retro-Style” ****
By Elyse Orecchio (guest reviewer)
Before there was Nora Ephron, Jean Kerr reigned as the queen of witty playwriting. Her comedy Mary, Mary
premiered on Broadway in 1961; it was one of the longest-running plays of the
decade, with more than 1,500 performances, and was adapted
as a film in 1963, with Debbie
Reynolds.
And yet I had never heard of Jean Kerr before this weekend; I’d
only known the name of her husband (renowned theatre critic Walter Kerr). In producing her work, Retro Productions pays
service not only to classic female playwrights, but new audiences who can be
inspired by them. Artistic director Heather E. Cunningham notes: “It is not
often that we think of female playwrights when we think of the 1960’s, and when
searching for our next production I made the decision to only consider plays
written before 1980 by women.”
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| Meghan E. Jones, Robert Franklin Neill, Heather Cunningham, Chris Harcum, Desmond Dutcher. Photo: Kyle Connolly. |
Following that standard rom-com formula, Mary, Mary is centered around two
men and two women who form a variety of “will-they, won’t they” combinations,
even though, of course, we know the two who will. They are Bob and Mary
McKellaway, who haven’t seen each other in nine months and are two weeks away
from having their divorce finalized.
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| Heather Cunningham, Chris Harcum, Desmond Dutcher. Photo:Kyle Connolly. |
Bob (played to full comedic effect by Chris Harcum) is impossibly
sensible and square, while his ex, Mary (played with wisdom and sensitivity by
Heather E. Cunningham), is—as the play’s title suggests—a contrarian. She’s a
wisecracking magazine editor, while he’s a stuffy book publisher.
They are brought back together by Bob’s tax lawyer, Oscar Nelson
(a delightful Desmond Dutcher), to prepare for an audit. To complicate things
further, Bob’s got a bubbly, young new fiancée (or a deductible, according to
Oscar) who is dying to meet Mary and get notes on being married to Bob. Meghan E. Jones is perfectly ridiculous as Tiffany Richards, and I mean that as a
compliment.
Then there’s Bob’s old Navy buddy-turned-movie star, Dirk Winston
(a cliché played with great believability by Robert Franklin Neill), who shows
up to convince Bob to publish his memoir and ends up wooing Mary. Their
courtship infuriates her ex-husband, who can’t seem to make sense of his
jealousy: “Life with Mary was like being in a telephone booth with an open
umbrella—no matter which way you turned, you got hit in the eye.”
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| Desmond Dutcher, Meghan E. Jones, Chris Harcum. Photo: Kyle Connolly. |
Bob and Mary slowly find their way back to each other through
inside jokes and a mutual fondness for cigarettes (the bubbly fiancée doesn’t
smoke). This Xennial derived pleasure from the silver-haired audience filling
the majority of the seats in the Gene Frankel Theater. I enjoyed their laughter
and nostalgia, made obvious by their knowing sighs during those intimate
moments best understood by couples who have been together long enough to finish
each other’s sentences without knowing they’re doing it.
While the first act lags at times, the second act is laden with
energy and physical comedy, thanks to shenanigans involving sleeping pills, a
locked door, and a lost key. When all five actors are romping about on stage,
they reach their peak laughter from the audience. Think: Neil Simon meets
Lucille Ball.
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| Heather Cunningham, Chris Harcum. Photo: Kyle Connolly. |
All scenes are set in Bob’s apartment/home office, and I have to
pause to commend the design team on the stunning set (Jack and Rebecca
Cunningham, Heather’s parents, both veteran designers) evoking
the 60s on the Upper East Side. The gorgeously painted blue walls and retro
props (Sara Slagle) along with a really neat, beautifully lit (Asa Lipton)
window, all serve up an era long gone.
So much of theater these days is about an outrageously fresh take
on a classic piece that sometimes it’s nice to see a revival that doesn’t try
to put a modern lens on old themes. Director Shay Gines’s Mary,Mary is
wonderfully straightforward. Now and then ya just wanna see a good old-fashioned
rom-com.
Gene Frankel Theater
24 Bond St., NYC
Through May 18
Elyse Orecchio studied musical theatre at Emerson College, acting at CUNY
Brooklyn College, and English Linguistics & Rhetoric at CUNY Hunter
College. She has worked in nonprofit communications for more than a decade. She
lives in Sunnyside, Queens, with her husband Joe, kids Theo and Melody, and
three cats. eorecchio@gmail.com @elyseorecchio
