Review - Big Love

I will admit, right off the bat, that I'm not a huge fan of Charles Mee.  It's not a comment on his talent, it's just that his type of collage/multimedia/presentational pieces just aren't my cup of tea.  My brain generally doesn't work in that way.  I can appreciate the craft involved and often enjoy some of the ideas or the spectacle, but, on the whole, I don't really like his shows after the curtain comes down.  I went back and looked at two reviews of previous Mee plays I've seen - one review said "...this type of conceptual collage-type piece is rather beyond me..." and one said "...I didn't enjoy this piece in the extreme.  I also admit I didn't get it.  At all.  I had no idea what the play was trying to say or do.  I also could feel my will to live seeping out of me as the play went on..."

That second review is a bit extreme, even for me, but I can remember hating that experience from top to bottom.  I probably wouldn't have purchased a ticket for Big Love at the Signature Theatre if two writers I greatly admire hadn't recommend I see it.  After seeing it, I can still say Charles Mee must just be above my head.  Again, I appreciated the craft, I enjoyed the look and spectacle, and my ear perked up at some delicious lines here and there, but on the whole, I didn't really 'like' it.

That's just me.  The rest of the audience had a grand time.  Well, except for my seat neighbors on the right.  I'll describe my seat neighbor experience later because perhaps, and just perhaps, they also affected my enjoyment of the show.

photo credit: T Charles Erickson

Big Love is sort of adapted-ish from an ancient Greek play, The Danaids, by Aeschylus.  The plots deals with 50 brides who escape from their arranged marriages to 50 grooms by sailing a boat from Greece to Italy.  They land at an Italian villa where they ask for sanctuary.  Of course the grooms come to reclaim their brides.  And wacky hijinks ensue.  As it were.

The masses of brides and grooms are shrunk onstage to three of each, with projections of the rest shown on the side screens at times in the play.  The three couples are pretty distinct and shown to be relatively 'right' for each other, but their major philosophical differences about arranged marriage keeps them apart.  The war between the sexes becomes all-out war by the frenetic reception scene.

photo credit: T Charles Erickson

There are monologues (I found Lynn Cohen's monologues to be quite touching and the most effective, and the speech by the villa owner's nephew was also quite lovely, though seemed to be from a different play), musical interludes (Bobby Steggart, an especial favorite of mine, beautifully sang a love song to his intended), tightly choreographed gymnastic and acrobatic scenes that interestingly show the characters' conflicting feelings about their lives.  There are wonderful projections (the helicopters bringing the grooms to the island is terrifically theatrical) and nice underscoring.  There is always something to see and hear going on in Big Love.

So, with all these compliments, I guess it's surprising I didn't really like the play.  I liked some elements, but they didn't seem to add up to anything for me.  I didn't see the big picutre or the 'big love' as described in the title.  I saw a lot of loud passion (more like rage passion than love passion) and blabbity blah, but not really love.  Except in the two monologues I referenced earlier.  Maybe I just have a mind block on the whole love thing, who knows?  Or the whole Charles Mee thing...

wedding gifts in the lobby

As for my seat neighbors, I'm sorry to report that the gent on my left had SEVERELY questionable hygiene, ugh, and on my right was a group of maybe ten German kids who it seemed had no interest in being there at all.  Except for when there was nudity.  Then they were quite loudly engaged with what was happening on stage.  Sigh.  The rest of the play was spent digging through their souvenir bags and looking at their phones.  And ridiculing the smelly guy, that happened a lot, too.  I hissed "no" at one point, to try to get them to sit still, but I was fighting a losing battle.  So, admittedly, it was hard to concentrate fully on Big Love when there were such distractions to my immediate left and right.

All in all, I guess I'm not sorry to have seen it because I liked Lynn Cohen, I always enjoy Bobby Steggart and because the entire physical production was quite magical and striking.  But that doesn't mean I 'liked' the play.  I'm just going to have to accept the fact that I don't 'get' Charles Mee, I probably never will, and never the twain shall meet.  Or something like that.  Your mileage may vary.