Mary's Wedding at The Jungle Theater on 9/22/09

By: John Olive

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Alayne Hopkins and Sam Bardwell in Mary's Wedding - Photo credit Michal Daniel

The Jungle stage is made into a place for dreaming: a large bed in the middle of an overgrown farmyard, a ramshackle barn door and the star-swept sky beyond, an old wooden beam that serves as a horse, ropes hung haphazardly, shrubs, benches. Mary, our dreamer, a very proper English girl freshly arrived on the Canadian prairie, wears a simple cotton nightdress. As the night progresses, Mary conjures up Charlie, a guileless and hugely charming ranch hand, hayseeds fairly tumbling out of his uncombed red hair. It's a two character play and these are always deceptively simple. 

 

But Stephen Massicotte's Mary's Wedding (at the Jungle through Oct 25) works. It's a sepia-toned meditation on youth, the horrors of war, absence, longing, life on the prairie. Mostly, though, it's a love story done as a dream, which means the play moves with non-linear abandon, beginning with Mary's first encounter with Charlie as he cowers during a prairie thunderstorm, terrified of the lightning, then to their brave good-byes as he heads off to the muddy trenches of World War 1, then to Charlie's gawky discomfort at a tea party, back to France (with Mary now playing the part of a much-loved sergeant major), to Charlie's announcement that he's decided to join the cavalry. A story and a relationship emerge. Different as these two people are, they connect, loving each other with a purity and a passion of which only the young are capable. Beautiful.

The problem – and it may not be a problem for everyone – is that the structure of the play is more complex and more interesting than the story being told. As gorgeously palpable as the love between Mary and Charlie is, their relationship doesn't really grow as the play progresses. As a result, this reviewer found himself becoming impatient: but what happens? 

All is forgiven, however, at the end. Massicotte's play builds to an emotional frisson and a discovery that is surprising and very moving. 

The two Jungle actors, Alayne Hopkins and Sam Bardwell, are both young and a tad inexperienced, though this gives their work a roughhewn presence and a sweetness that serves the story very well. Bardwell effectively portrays Charlie's progression from simple rustic to war hero. We can easily see why this "sophisticated" English girl falls for him. As Mary, Alayne Hopkins (so memorable in the recent The Skin Of Our Teeth) keeps the dream play moving and finds a lovely balance between arch Englishness and thunderstorm passion. Both actors move with a dreamy formality that is very effective – they are of course aided enormously in this regard by Carl Flink's understated choreography.

This brings me to the design. Even by the sky high standards of the Jungle, this play is gorgeously rendered. Joel Sass (who directed as well as designed the set and costumes) vividly creates the play's locales – the barn, the horses, the WW1 trenches, the no-man's-land between the lines, the drawing room – all the while keeping Mary's bed front and center. Barry Browning's lighting is just as good, day moving into night, the starry sky, the softly falling snow in France. Sean Healey's sound is marvelous: the way the Canadian thunderstorm morphs into the explosions of German artillery creates genuine gooseflesh. And composer Greg Brosofske's simple yet fantastical dream music works well.

As it so often does, the Jungle renders this play with jewel box beauty: the story, the acting, the design, everything is – almost – perfect. Recommended. 

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Location Info: The Jungle Theater
Artist Info: The Jungle Theater

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