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June 11, 2004
Boston Marriage a poor script
Actors and director do a good job with an almost pointless Mamet
play.
LAURI DONAHUE SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN
On the fringes of polite society, a romantic rake arranges a rendezvous
with an ingenue at the home of a former lover who's recently acquired
a wealthy patron – and who wants to watch. Sounds like Molière.
But in David Mamet's 1999 drawing room comedy of (bad) manners Boston
Marriage, the rake, the ingenue and the voyeur are all women.
Mamet's known for putting tough-talking, obscenity-spouting men
in testosterone-enriched contemporary settings like a commercial
real estate office (the Pulitzer Prize-winning Glengarry Glen
Ross) and Hollywood (Speed-the-Plow). Boston Marriage
is his first play with an all-female cast, and he places them in
the genteel, hot-house environment of a Boston parlor circa 1900.
(A "Boston Marriage" is an archaic term for a live-in
relationship between women - often, but not always, of a lesbian
nature.)
The main characters are Anna and Claire, and their "problems"
arise because one's living off a married man and the other wants
to seduce a teenager. They're arrogant, self-absorbed, abusive toward
the maid, self-indulgent, self-pitying and (for all their wit) rather
stupid women of leisure. They live in relative comfort but yearn
for luxury. One wants to give them a firm talking-to and a swift
boot into the working world.
The play is rich with clever repartee in the manner of Oscar Wilde:
Claire asks Anna if her patron/lover has a wife, to which Anna responds,
"Now, why would he require a mistress if he had no wife?"
"We suffer for our sins," says one woman. "But not
before we have made others suffer for them," replies the other.
"They say that two may live as cheaply as one," says Claire.
"The world is full of fools, and if one listens long enough
one may hear damn near anything," Anna replies.
But it takes more than great lines to make a great play.
Anna and Claire bear little resemblance to actual women. With their
bickering, histrionic posturing, denigration of motherhood, obsession
with décor and sexual immorality, they seem more like a crude
caricature of bitchy gay men. If Mamet intended to make some point
by switching this offensive stereotype from men to women, it's lost
on me. In fact, the entire play ends up seeming rather pointless.
The United Players give the work a solid, professional Canadian
première in the intimate setting of the Jericho Arts Centre.
The earthy jewel tones of the chintz-draped set (by Ali Mohtashami)
co-ordinate beautifully with the period costumes (Sandi McDonald).
Tanja Dixon-Warren (Anna), Laura White (Claire) and Melanie Waldren
(Catherine, the maid), as directed by Michael Fera, maintain the
energy and focus that the razor-sharp interplay demands. That the
characters remain intellectual constructs, rather than recognizable
human beings, is the fault of the script, not of the able actors
and director.
Lauri Donahue is an award-winning playwright and the rebbetzin
of Beth Tikvah Congregation in Richmond.
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