Indy Theatre Habit

Warning: there are more spoilers than usual in this review.

On Friday, February 20, my friend, David, and I drove downtown to the Theatre on the Square to see “The Marriage of Marcus Tyler,” written by Matt Fotis and directed by John Fullam. The show closed last night, so this post will not help you decide whether or not to see it, but I want to record a few thoughts about it anyway.  It was John Fullam’s directorial debut and my third time to see a production of a Matt Fotis piece.

I hope to see more of both artists’ work.

 

Fotis had a piece called “Potpourri Potluck Kitchen Sink Meatloaf” in the 2008 Indy Fringe Festival.  I also saw his “Burying Mom” in 2007 but that was pre-blog.  Seeing this third piece puts Fotis firmly in my “playwrights to follow” category.  I want to see at least one production of everything he writes.

I may not be able to tell you exactly why, though.  I love his clever use of language, and his quirky humor, and the fact that he is not afraid to be irreverent.  I also love that even with all of his explorations of the dark side of Midwestern life (whatever that means) there is always a glimmer of hope, of love, of optimism.  Maybe that is part of the Midwestern thing, too.

But it’s never that simple.   I always get a feeling of something being “off” in a Matt Fotis play.  Not “off” as in wrong, but “off” as in not quite resonating with me.  Slightly off-center for me, or slightly off from what I expect, or slightly off from what makes sense to me, or something. 

This hard-to-pin-down quality makes me uncomfortable sometimes, but I can’t help being fascinated by it.

And the rest of the time it makes me laugh, which is always good.

AND David leaned over to me more than once during the show and said, “I know people just like this!”  So maybe the “off” quality is just me.

A woman in the restroom at intermission told me that her family is very dysfunctional.  She said, “This play is making my husband realize what I’ve gone through.  He is saying ‘Would this be what it would be like if I had to meet your family?’  And I tell him, ‘Pretty much.’  This play is funny, but also… (disturbingly realistic.)”

In any case, by the time “The Marriage of Marcus Tyler” was over, I was exhausted from laughing, and groaning, and laughing again.  This is the story of a dysfunctional family who is meeting the unsuspecting fiancée of one of their members for the first time. 

There is a lot of yelling and displaying of emotional baggage along with the humor.  The interactions between the characters made me think of how irrational, and yet real, dysfunction is.  It is easy for an outsider to say, “You people are nuts!” but within the family or group, the people whose buttons are getting pushed believe their responses are normal and valid.  They don’t even think of justifying them because they feel so familiar.

Vicki Tyler (Vickie Cornelius Phipps) is the tightly-wound mom.  She shouts, “Shut up!” to her husband and threatens to kill her eldest son, Andrew (Evan Wesselmann) if he doesn’t move out.

Donald Tyler (Ed Mobley), the passive-aggressive dad, seems to always be two or three beats behind everyone else.  According to Andrew, he has replaced all of his children with plants.  He mists his ferns lovingly and territorially and obsesses about the crabgrass in the yard. 

Allison Tyler (Erin Cohenour) is the even-tempered, over-achieving, good child.  She is supposedly only 16 but, as one of the other characters says, “she is already a yuppie.”  I thought she was the kindest and most aware of the group, but being only 16 and without resources if the family turns on her, there is only so much she can do to keep the family on track.  Ultimately, it’s every person for herself in this world.

Even sarcastic, mischievous Andrew Tyler (Evan Wesselmann), the would-be narrator of the story and oldest brother in the family, is not as self-aware and honest as he likes to think he is.  He lives in his underwear and talks directly to the audience a lot, which I guess is supposed to make us think he is more “real” than the other members of his family.  He also acts as if he didn’t even know at first that his younger brother, Marcus (Joey Hudson), was getting married.  Later, when Marcus finally shows up, we are supposed to approve Andrew’s acting like a jerk all afternoon as a test for whether or not Julie could survive marrying into the family.  He did this at Marcus’ request.    Their smugness as they reveal the truth of their manipulations made me think Andrew wasn’t just acting like a jerk.

The racist grandparents, Alice Goodwin (Ethel Booth) and Jerome Goodwin (Larry Manion), are even more calcified in their vitriole and their annoying habits than their daughter, Vicki.   They are a hoot…and terrifying.

Poor, sweet Julie Nichols (Linda Heiden) enters this toxic mix one afternoon because part of getting married to a man you love is meeting your future in-laws.  Marcus is supposed to be there with her, but he seems to have been held up at his office for hours.

All of the actors do a good job of portraying the complexity and humanity of their characters, but David said, and I agree, that because the Julie character doesn’t have many lines, we have to learn about her in other ways.  David said about Linda Heiden, the actor playing Julie, “She doesn’t have much to say, but she is really pretty spectacular with the facial expressions.”

Throughout the play, as the extent of the family’s dysfunction became more and more apparent, I kept thinking, “HOW is this going to end?” 

I think Julie is meant to save them, or at least to change the family dynamic enough that family members who want to can save themselves.  That’s a big burden to put on one person.  Part of me wanted to shout, “Julie, run!  Don’t even think of marrying Marcus!”  But another part of me thought, “Well, she did make it through this horrendous afternoon.  If anyone is up to joining this family without going crazy, she is.”

Still, at the end of the play, it could go either way.  I liked that, too.

The set, designed and constructed by technical director James Trofatter, was of a comfortable, suburban home with an open floor plan.  Funny and enjoyable decorations included the reproduction of the Edvard Munch painting, “The Scream” and a ukulele.  Impressive elements included what seemed to be an authentic hardwood floor.

The assistant director was Andrew Ranck.  He also ran the lights and sound, which were designed by Ron Spencer and James Trofatter, respectively.  Stephen Hollenbeck designed the just-right, suburban family costumes.  Diane McGuire managed the props, which included a hilarious cheese tray.

By the way, at one point early on in “The Marriage of Marcus Tyler,” David said, “Hey!  Half the cast of ‘Evil Dead’ is in this!”  It was fun seeing them new roles.

Also, during the curtain talk for “Marcus Tyler,” John Fullam mentioned that the next show at Theatre on the Square will be “Dog Sees God: Confessions About a Teenage Blockhead,” a play by Bert V. Royal about the Peanuts characters grown up.  David said he wanted to see that, too.  It opens next weekend, on Friday, March 6, 2009 and runs through Saturday, April 4, 2009.  To reserve tickets, go to the TOTS website or call the TOTS box office at 317-685-TOTS.

Hope Baugh – www.IndyTheatreHabit.com