By Nancy Worssam
"Mary's Wedding" is probably the most tender, sweetest play now running on any stage in Seattle. It's a love story set in a time of war, a story about an era when lovers were more inno-cent but war was even more horrendous. If you like theater to tug at your heartstrings, this is a production for you.
On the night before Mary's wedding, she dreams. It's that dream that is presented on stage, a dream of her romance with Charlie whom she met shortly after moving to rural Canada from Britain in the 1910s. He's the son of a farmer. She's brought the sophistication of England to the provinces. Yet they quickly overcome the differences in their backgrounds and use those differences to teach and learn from each other.
As sometimes happens in dreams, time and geography circle around each other. Mary remembers their first meeting, his experiences in World War I, their developing romance, her loneliness when he's gone, the exhilaration of riding horses together, his letters from the front, their secret meetings in the barn.
Dressed in a simple but virginal white gown, her long, blond hair flowing down her back, Mary reviews in her dream all aspects of her relationship with Charlie on this night before she is to become a married woman. Back and forth go the images. At one moment she's watching him in the trenches. At the next, she's flirting with him, away from the watchful eye of her mother. She serves Charlie tea; then, a moment later, he's dragging the bodies of his fallen comrades back from no-man's-land. Time turns in on itself. It has no linearity.
Director Karen Lund has worked assiduously with her entire production crew to maintain the aura of a dream. Mark Lund's set consists of a platform and ramps behind which is a low wall that can serve to mark the boundary of a Canadian farm or reinforce a trench in France. Behind the wall is a floor-to-ceiling screen on which are projected images that support the progress of the play. There are rainstorms in rural Canada, ships plying the Atlantic Ocean, barbed-wire fortifications at Festubert, peaceful clouds above the farm, the battlefield at Moreuil Woods. This backdrop is constantly changing, as are the sound effects as Mary's dream shifts in time and space. Andrew Duff's lighting nicely reinforces the effects of sound and set.
Jesse Notehelfer as Mary is fetchingly innocent. As she recognizes her growing interest in the gangly farm boy, her wonder and excitement remind us all of that tantalizing stage of early love with its thrills and delight as well as its exquisite uncertainty. It's an emotional rollercoaster, and Notehelfer takes us along on the ride.
Notehelfer also assumes the role of Charlie's superior, Sgt. Flowerdew, a real person who was awarded the Victoria Cross posthumously for his courageous feats in the battles noted in the play. She manages to make this transition believable while dressed in her gown of purity. That in itself is no small feat.
Sam Wilson's Charlie is both gentle and brave. He's an awkward youth smitten by the beguiling Mary, but he manages to overcome his shyness and win her affection. He's also the gentle, fearful soul caught in the grip of a ghastly war. He's a man whose sense of honor demands that he overcome his fright and act with bravery and courage. These actions result in the ultimate sacrifice. His naïve enthusiasm at the outbreak of the war followed by the horrors to which he is subjected is a powerful reminder of what the young men of our time face in our own wars. And he, like so many of today's soldiers, doesn't come back from the front.
Both actors are adept mimes, creating through their own bodies and before our eyes places and things that aren't really there. Horses are central elements in this story. They exist only in our imaginations, yet we see that they frighten Mary and we sense them nuzzling Charlie. We watch as Charlie and Mary gallop through the countryside in an invigorating ride that borders on the sensuous.
Stephen Massicotte's script presents a simple love story with complex structural elements. Early on, the Tennyson poem about the charge of the Light Brigade is recited by both characters. Near the end of the play Tennyson's charge becomes a reality as into the mouth of Hell ride Charlie and his fellow cavalrymen. Throughout the play, Massicotte provides subtle clues about what is to come.
Mary loves another Tennyson poem, the one about the lady of Shallot who dies after seeing Sir Lancelot. Charlie reminds her that, for her, death is not inevitable after losing love. He tells her that she will be happy, that she can love again. And that is the last moment of her dream before she awakens on her wedding day.
'MARY'S WEDDING'
Taproot Theatre,
204 N. 85th St.
Wednesdays-Saturdays through April 21
Tickets: $25-$32 (senior and student discounts available)
781-9707 or Ticketmaster, 293-ARTS or e-mail box@taproottheatre.org
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