By Chuck Graham, TucsonStage.com
Tim Fuller photo
Mary (Maggie Josephine McNeil) and Charlie (Stephen J. Dunham ) share a moment of tea and understanding.
It isn't the linear story so much as the poetic feeling that stays with you in “Mary's Wedding” by Canadian playwright Stephen Massicotte, now playing at the Scoundrel & Scamp Theatre in the Historic Y just off North Fourth Avenue.
The kind of poetic pulse that beats with the anticipation of romance, protesting reality and refusing restraint. Wrapped in language so sensual it can break your heart and set it on fire, all at the same time.
Looking fragile as a saint, barefoot in a full-length white cotton nightshirt, Maggie Josephine McNeil as Mary sets the play's pace through 90 minutes of the most compelling reminiscence an eager spirit could handle.
While her arched eyebrows and searching face can project myriad moods at an astonishing rate, McNeil also speaks with a fascinating hint of English accent as honest as the cup of tea she describes with complete enchantment.
Susan Arnold is the director. David Morden is credited as dialect coach and proves his worth in giving Mary's voice a sense of dedicated old world family values, even as her new world Canadian spirit is bursting to be free.
Her companion is Charlie (Stephen J. Dunham), the kind of no-frills, hard-working good guy who has a better understanding of horses than he has for people. It's in that way that Charlie connects with Mary, like an untamed force of nature, full of surprises.
At the same time Charlie is a bundle of contradictions – he is frontier-brave when needed, but also forgiving and generous, trusting her even when he doesn't understand why.
Filled to bursting with courage and adventure, he can also be reduced to tears of fright by the rolling peals of ominous thunder in every darkening storm that comes crashing around him.
The year is 1920. The first World War is over, but it isn't really over. It lives on in the minds of Charlie and Mary, just as real as their own daily lives, sometimes even more than real because their memories are so malleable.
Memories that are willing to appear like abstract art, twisted and pulled any way that feels right, any way that needs to be remembered.
In creating this sense of shifting wonder, Arnold as director becomes the artist painting a moving picture of changing personalities, deftly combining highlights and shadows until watching this play begins to feel like reading a poem, with every scene expressing many emotions all at once...swirling layers of real and remembered occasions.
So resist the compulsion to search for a straight-line narrative, to wonder “where are they now?”
“Mary's Wedding” is a love story that takes place just over100 years ago. It could have also taken place tomorrow. Anyone who has ever been in love or hopes to be in love, will understand.
Performances continue through Nov. 7 with shows at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays, in the Scoundrel & Scamp Theatre of the Historic Y, 738 N. Fifth Ave.
Tickets are $30 general admission, $28 seniors 65+, $15 for student and teacher; also for theater artists. The play is being suggested for ages 12+. To make reservations, phone 520-448-3300 or visit scoundrelandscamp.org
The actors will not be masked on stage. The theater's COVID protocol calls for audience members to wear masks and to show proof of their COVID status, either with a shot record or a negative test result within the last 72 hours. See the company's website for details.
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