The Marriage of Bette and Boo is the classic ChristopherDurang play: an absurdist comedy with dark undertones that satirizesthe Catholic Church and people's ridiculous compulsions. Alsocharacteristic of a Durang play is the complexity the productionrequires. With over two dozen scenes, fast-paced dialogue, and severalmusical numbers, this Durang work is a particularly risky, involvedchoice for any theater company. That said, John Hopkins UniversityTheater's version of Durang's 1985 masterpiece more than lives up tothis challenge, producing a play that is absurd though comprehensible,hilarious without abandoning its darkness and cerebral while neverceasing to entertain.
The play is narrated by the character Matt (senior MichaelVincent), who is meant to be a semi-autobiographical depiction ofDurang himself. The story begins with the marriage of Matt's parents,Bette (senior Elizabeth Gilbert) and Boo (senior Anthony Blaha) withtheir families there to celebrate. It is not long before their marriagebegins to fall apart. The successful birth of their first son, Matt, isfollowed by a progression of stillborns who the Doctor (senior AkshayOberoi) unceremoniously and coldly throws to the ground after birth,remarking "dead" only the first time while silently tossing thesuccessive ones. Boo takes to drinking while Bette remains obsessedwith having children. Whether Boo's alcoholism is a result of Bette'sdesperation or vice-versa is left unanswered and rendered irrelevant asthe audience comes to understand that these characters do not live in aworld that is comprehensible by reason.
This is to say nothing of these two characters' respective families.
Bette's mother (junior Michelle Brown) is a domineeringcontroller who attempts to regulate what conservation topics arepermissible. One of her sisters, Joan (junior Justine Wiesinger) isperpetually sullen and the other, Emily (junior Julie Sihilling) is amental clinic frequenter and predisposed to apologizing, asking at onepoint, `'Is the phrase `my own stupidity' hyphenated?'' Bette's father,Paul (junior Timothy Wang), due to a severe speech impediment, iscompletely incomprehensible to everyone including his own family.
Boo's parents are equally laden by absurdity. His father, Karl(junior Shaun Gould) is a misogynistic bully who constantly derides hiswife as the "dumbest white woman alive." Boo's mother, whom we onlyknow by her nickname, Soot (junior Elizabeth Eldridge), yields to herhusband's torment by ignoring reality and bursting out into hystericallaughter whenever he is abusive.
In typical Durang fashion, he extends this level of absurdityto the Catholic Church. The resident priest, Father Donnelly (Oberoi),whom the characters often turn to for advice is perhaps the mostridiculous of the characters presented. Performed with a hilarious --though unnecessary -- Indian accent, he remarks that he is unable tohelp people solve their problems, except to `'mumble platitudes'' tothe `'stupid people'' who approach him with their `'insolubleproblems.'' Oberoi steals the show as Father Donnelly when he gives abrilliant interpretation of bacon being fried (you are going to have tosee it to understand).
The narrator, Matt is perhaps the most interesting, thoughunexplored character. Matt belongs both within and apart from thenarrative, the teller of the story and an occasional participant,though he often comes across as a distant spectator. The psychologicaleffects of his family's dysfunctions on him are not explicitlyconveyed, though as the story progresses we sense Matt's developmentand his own voice becomes more pronounced, remarking toward the end ofthe play, "I don't believe that God punishes people for specificthings. He punishes people in general for no reason."
This particular production of The Marriage of Bette and Boo effectivelycaptures the spirit and ideas of Durang. The play is a dark satire thatstraddles the line of between fiction and fantasy while never belongingto the magical realism genre. The actors and director Krista Smithconvey this vision that leaves the audience disturbed though unable tocontrol their laughter.
