Playwright: Craig Wright. At: BackStage Theatre Company at the Chopin, 1543 W. Division
Phone: 1-800-838-8006; $20. Runs through: March 27
Craig Wright's play could be viewed, albeit cynically, as a reason to never marry, or as an argument for tolerance of extramarital partners ( cf. cicisbeos, concubines ) as a means of ensuring genealogical harmony. Its probable purpose, however, is to assuage the guilt of spouses whose contentment is erected on broken promises made to wives, husbands and families long since discarded on the compost heap of "youthful mistakes."
Brad is a former jock who now works at the video store, while Beth is a stay-at-home mom. David, by contrast, is a pharmacist and his wife, Cathy, teaches school. Both couples own homes, attend church, and chauffeur their children to wholesome recreational activities ( soccer practice for the boys, ballet lessons for the girls ) . So when David and Beth declare that they are in love and mustmust!be together, it's a shock to all involved. Especially when, romance thriving on risk ( and inflated egos ) , the adulterous lovers soon find themselves doubting the wisdom of their flightuntil Beth settles all questions by announcing that she is pregnant.
No one can accuse Wright of underestimating his market. Whatever the status of his own alliances in 2005 when he wrote this justification for procreative anarchyour last glimpse of David is as he composes a hallmark-sweet letter to his daughter by this second marriage, in which he marvels at how, after all the pain he and mummy have inflicted, "love keeps happening"the comfort offered to the thousands of citizens whose multiple divorces proclaim their fickle judgment is as palpable as it is specious.
Fortunately, the BackStage Theatre Company actors only have to utter this drivel with straight faces for 75 minutes, their careful evasion of covert side-issuesBeth's trading up in her choice of paramours, for example, or the role of Cathy's job in rendering her more resilient to domestic upheavalinterspersed with protracted bouts of steamy sim-sex. The potential humor of a scenic design dominated by a single revolving bed is likewise left unexplored, as is our curiosity over the fate of the offspring dubbed "little hitlers' by their loving progenitors, one of whom, in the course of the action, is reported to have eaten an entire month's worth of mommie's contraceptive pills with no immediate ill effects. If you find yourself longing to throttle these characters, but your date sobs into his/her hankie, reconsider buying the ring.