Michael Weller is one of those supremely busy playwrights who swiftly churns out a play before the previous one has even completed previews, as though fearfully intuiting that if he didn’t, the second work may never get on its feet at all. This hastiness is more than apparent in both of Weller’s productions that are currently running Off-Broadway. First, there’s Beast, a puzzlingly uninspired piece that revolves around the traumatic psychological and physical effects of the Iraq War on two veterans, which began previews at the New York Theatre Workshop in early September. Poorly utilizing comedy (do we really need another satiric impersonation of our soon-to-be past president that depicts him as completely moronic and incompetent? Is that actually still funny?), this so-called dramedy makes no statement against the war, nor its number one supporter, that hasn’t already been made ad nauseam. It does this with ridiculous stunts (and strange bursts of unrealism in an otherwise realistic script) like the “Teeexaaas”-chanting and humorlessly didactic Mount Rushmore that ludicrousy inspires the two men to pay our country’s leader a psychotically induced and decidedly absurd afternoon visit to his country ranch. Soon, in 2009, we’ll witness Weller’s musicalized Dr. Zhivago (with music by The Secret Garden composer. Lucy Simon), but even sooner — concurrently with Beast — we have MCC’s production of Fifty Words, another dramedy of a more domestic nature that, thankfully, more effectively and certainly more realistically, centers on the intense dissolution of a New York marriage.
The title, Fifty Words, refers to wife Jan’s fervent wish that there exist fifty words for “love,” much like the Eskimos’ varied verbal selections for “snow.” This is a rather fitting designation for a work that attempts to explore the infinite depth, complexities, and limitless kinds of love that exist, both realistically and idealistically within marriage. The kitchen sink dramedy (Neil Patel’s über-realistic set incorporates a working sink and all the other state-of-art trimmings – as well as a fully stocked fridge – of an upper-middle class couple’s home) opens as it closes with the unhappily wedded couple, Jan and Adam (Elizabeth Marvel and Norbert Leo Butz), calmly and evasively discussing the mundane routine of their lives in a superficial attempt to avoid recognition of the tenuousness of their swiftly deteriorating relationship. The notable change that occurs over the course of director Austin Pendleton’s energized and intermissionless production is that there is no real change. What does happen, though, is a blunt and rather violent recognition of the myriad problems that have been festering to a boil in Jan and Adam’s not exactly atypical go-through-the-motions American marriage. And boy, oh boy, the marathon catfight erupts in quite the cathartic explosion midway through the production. Infidelities are revealed, of course, but there’s also vegetable slinging; glass shattering; angry-but-disturbingly-triumphant, throw-down-on-the-table sex; and yes, even a slap and beating or two (this marriage swings both ways on that account). While there are some genuinely insightful and moving moments, these are disappointingly outnumbered by the script’s various inherent problems.
At its core, Fifty Words does not offer an illuminating dissection of marriage, therefore failing as a thoroughly engaging piece of theatre. Because it takes place over the course of one evening, we are never allowed to know Jan and Adam as they were in the early, wondrous relationship stage of over-the-top affection, or even as they, blissfully content and unknowing, slipped into the happy routine that naturally develops over the course of the first months of a young marriage. Nor do we witness their playful interactions with their (only talked about) son, and we are also denied a single entirely pleasant and affectionate conversation between the two. Instead, we are proffered two selfish individuals who each possess moments of generosity and heartbreak, but these moments are so few and so brief that we have no time to grasp unto them and offer up our sympathy. We don’t fully understand what drove them to this breaking point, or even if they were always on this path of self-destruction; the necessary back story and/or exposition simply doesn’t exist in Weller’s text. We are kept at a distance, watching a marriage viciously breakdown before our eyes, and we never fully engage. It struck me that Weller’s work here creates a similar effect as much of Neil Labute’s repertoire: an intriguingly difficult situation that ideally challenges one philosophically, but lacks the necessary character likability to create an emotional dimension to the work. Such an emotional void is particularly significant problem when the work is all about relationships. After all, what is a relationship if, at its essential core, it’s not based in emotion?
Luckily for Weller and for MCC, Telsey & Company possessedthe fantastic foresight to cast Elizabeth Marvel and Norbert Leo Butz as the emotionally inept and doomed couple. While the noticeable age gap between the two creates a rather awkward picture of a couple upon first meeting, the clever and incredibly game actors infuse fiery spirit, zany charm, and yes, even some genuine warmth into what could easily verge on caricatures of the brutal George and Martha of Edward Albee’s imaginings. With two lesser actors, the potential failure of this work seems high, and though it’s still a play about relationships from an obviously male perspective (reminiscent of The Last Five Years, another Butz vehicle attempting an unbiased view of a marriage on the rocks), and is therefore inherently problematic, it is also an exciting 90 minutes of theatre. If nothing else, this current production is worth the price of admission if only to witness the fierce commitment and sexually – and violently – charged interplay between Marvel and Butz. Few things are more rewarding than watching the power of a performer to translate a merely average play into a riveting production. While offering a tighter and overall more engaging piece of theatre than Beast, Weller’s work here demonstrates that sometimes Words just aren’t enough.
