Theatre-Intime goes 'Beyond Therapy' with Durang's comedy

You know those old ladies who inevitably sit in front of you at the theater and invariably make annoyingly obvious comments about the play halfway through the second act? Well, at the opening night of "Beyond Therapy" at Theatre-Intime, the ladies were out in full force.

But there is something I have learned about these ladies: They often manage to nail down the central theme in fewer words than I could. So, as we approached the climax of this farcical, daring, hilarious play about relative sanity, one lady leaned over to the other and spoke the Old Lady Theme of the Evening: "Which one needs the treatment?"

Eric Rosen '02 makes his directorial debut with this riotous farce by contemporary playwright Christopher Durang. The play begins with Prudence (Katie Flynn '02), a 30-something SWF trying to find the right guy, answering a personal ad placed by Bruce (Tommy Dewey '01), a sensitive, well-intentioned man trying to find the right woman.

All seems well initially, but the audience soon discovers that Prudence is afraid of commitment and, moreover, Bruce is bisexual and living with a somewhat jealous boyfriend. The blind date ends with the first of many exchanges of thrown glasses of water, and both characters subsequently rush to their respective shrinks.

However, as the old lady so astutely pointed out, the shrinks need more help than the main characters themselves. Prudence's psychologist, Dr. Framingham (Kyle Brandt '01), turns out to be her former lover and hits on her throughout their session. Katie Pickett '00 snags the largest audience response as Bruce's therapist, Mrs. Wallace, whose on-stage orgasm and antics with her Snoopy doll result in mid-scene applause.

Even after the uproarious scene in Mrs. Wallace's office, the play reaches still another comic peak as Prudence ventures to Bruce's house, where the aforementioned jealous boyfriend, Bob (Kevin Simmons '03), lingers with sarcastic, flippant comments for the uncomfortable couple. Simmons' every entrance and exit is met with a laugh from the audience, as Dewey's Bruce tries to keep the agitated scene under control.

Slowly, the situation disintegrates into uncontrollable mayhem. Bob's mother keeps calling on the phone, and the characters begin screaming at each other and repeatedly hanging up the phone, as Bob's mother sings on the other end of the line. The play continues to shift between restaurant, house and therapists' offices as it intensifies into the second act. Soon Prudence and Bruce, despite their foibles, seem completely sane compared to their hysterical surroundings.

Durang, who was a humanities fellow at Princeton in the fall of 1998, is the playwright of many other works, including "Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You" and most recently, "Betty's Summer Vacation." His fast-paced, caricatured and vulgar style has become the new standard for farce, though it can be controversial — Intime's 1996 production of "Sister Mary Ignatius" provoked some angry responses because of its sardonic depiction of Catholicism.

In "Beyond Therapy," Durang ridicules the popular desire for psychiatric help, which creates dire psychoses in people with perfectly reasonable quirks. He designs a world in which the therapists need help as much as, if not more than, the patients — and, as it should be in a well-constructed farce, it is a world not so different from our own that is merely vehemently exaggerated.

The central difficulty in farce, and undoubtedly the reason for any controversy about it, lies in the balance between the often violent and disturbing action of the play and its ridiculous and humorous intent. As Mrs. Wallace says in a statement which could in many ways apply to "Beyond Therapy" itself, "Everybody sees Chekhov plays as tragedies, but he thought they were comedies." The actors, however, manage to conquer this balance, keeping the audience buckled over in laughter even as characters degrade, demoralize and shoot at each other.

My only confusion — and I am not sure whether it is textual or directorial — is Durang's intended relationship between the sanity of Prudence and that of Bruce. Though the theme of the play seems to suggest that the two are at equal levels of reasonable insanity, Bruce seems to have peculiar inconsistencies such as attacks of uncontrollable weeping, while Prudence's main eccentricity is a love for her pet cats.

Rosen's experienced cast has a splendid ability to send the audience into hysterics with a simple glance, especially Quipfire! members Pickett and Dewey and Princeton stage newcomer Simmons — who has his sarcastic gaze honed to comic perfection.

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It is Pickett, however, whose energy and timing keep the audience begging for more. Sitting in her robe in her animal-print chair, talking to her Snoopy doll and mistaking "secretary" for "dirigible," she became the talk of intermission.

Dewey and Flynn's dialogue is charming while retaining its heightened element of caricature, and Brandt and Matt Roman (as the waiter) are wonderfully lecherous.

On the whole, the play sometimes becomes bogged down in extensive relationship chat, a problem that could perhaps be solved by more rapid-fire delivery all around.

So, if you are in the mood for some laughs, some fish hanging on the wall and some unabashed ridicule of pop culture, this one is for you. And, though after the show the old ladies expressed mainly shock at some of the second act impropriety, I think, deep down, they really loved it.

Theatre-Intime presents "Beyond Therapy." Thurs., April 20 - Sat., April 22 at 8 p.m. and Sat., April 22 at 2 p.m. Call (609)-258-4950 for reservations.