Big Love: Theater review by Adam Feldman
Charles Mee’s Big Love begins in an Italian idyll so immaculately conceived—pristine walls, a clean white tub, a hanging garden of flowers, blue sea and sky in the background—that it’s only a matter of time before the canvas gets splattered. Freely adapted from Aeschylus’ Danaid tetralogy, of which only the first part survives, the play depicts a refugee crisis sparked by the refusal of 50 Greek women to wed the 50 men to whom they’ve been involuntarily betrothed. The runaway brides are led by the radical Thyona (Stacey Sargeant), who borrows misandrist rhetoric from Valerie Solanas’s SCUM Manifesto; their pursuers follow the intransigent Constantine (Ryan-James Hatanaka), who claims an American warrior’s right to have his way. This battle of the sexes is doomed to end in a literal orgy of violence.
True to its title, Big Love is epic in scope and open of heart. There are striking monologues in verse, and amid the carnage are an egalitarian courtship between Lydia (Rebecca Naomi Jones) and Nikos (Bobby Steggert), a wistful monologue by a young gay man (Preston Sadler) and a thematic summation by a wise older woman (Lynn Cohen). Mee’s postmodern approach also allows for frequent jokey anachronisms, musical interludes and opportunities for spectacle. (Some are effective, as when the frustrated women repeatedly fling themselves on the floor, while others seem trite, as when they sing Lesley Gore’s “You Don’t Own Me.”) Yet although these elements come across clearly in Tina Landau’s busy revival, they don’t quite come together. The rush of flat activity gets tiring, and Mee’s philosophizing can seem shapeless—as though he wanted to have his wedding cake and eat it too and smear it on everyone’s faces. The production is admirable, but I wasn’t fully taken.—Adam Feldman
Pershing Square Signature Center (see Off Broadway). By Charles Mee. Directed by Tina Landau. With ensemble cast. Running time: 1hr 40mins. No intermission.
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