By Stuart Miller . . .
There’s a moment somewhere in the middle of I’m Going to Marry You Tobey Maguire when you start to see the seams of Samantha Hurley’s sketch comedy writing background. And then she comes up with an outrageous new twist, and then another, and another, leaving audiences laughing and admiring her creative chutzpah as they happily ride the newfound momentum to the play’s end.
Shelby (Tessa Albertson) is an eighth-grade outcast who is constantly bullied, with no help from a mother who ignores or screams demands and a dad who is dead or worse. So, she pours all her passions—those of the extreme and intensely adolescent variety—into Tobey Maguire (Scott Thomas), first as president of his fan club and then as his kidnapper, thinking she can make him want to marry her.
Yes, this teen from South Dakota perfectly plotted and pulled off a crime, with help from “Kidnapping for Dummies,” that defies belief . . . as does this version of Maguire, a “potty-mouthed” drug-addled womanizing mess at the height of his stardom (in 2004). (The real Maguire has reportedly been sober since he was 19.)
But believability isn’t Hurley’s goal. The playwright goes as all in on every comedic idea (some brilliant, some cockamamie) as Shelby, while examining the destabilizing effects of neglect and loneliness and how they intersect with the destabilizing effects of fame and money.
The play often skims the surfaces of its themes and occasionally stops to address them too bluntly, yet it’s done with such verve and imagination—and complete commitment from actors playing characters who should be committed—in such an intimate space that the audience becomes immersed in this endlessly weird showdown. Actually, the immersion starts before the show: pinup images of Maguire overwhelm you from the moment you enter the theater; and if you want to use the bathroom you have to use the one on the stage . . . in Shelby’s bedroom.
(Janae Robinson rounds out the cast, playing Shelby’s mother, Tobey’s inner self—sounding like Harry Potter—and a local real estate broker and cornhole player. Believe me, that detail becomes crucial in a way that’s too ludicrous for you to imagine.)
Shelby, who relies heavily on “Cosmo” (Cosmopolitan Magazine) for her ideas about romance, calls up plenty of musical cues, usually by smacking a remote in her bra (she boasts that she’s grown-up enough to wear one). She continues being bullied at school while waiting for Stockholm Syndrome to overcome her one true love . . . even as she realizes (after Tobey pressures her to smoke a cigarette while cursing up a storm) that maybe they’re not meant to be. Tobey, who is studying Stockholm Syndrome, is kinda sorta undergoing his own journey of discovery too, though both of them remain more comfortable in this basement overflowing with denial.
The play is littered with early aughts pop culture references: Coldplay comes in for thrashing; Britney Spears gets some love and defense; and “Leo,” as in DiCaprio, is mocked for his love of pretty young things. But there are other references too, like the fact that Shelby’s last name, Hinkley, sounds the same as the man who shot President Ronald Reagan to impress Jodie Foster.
There are also occasional moments when the characters reference the play they’re in. Many of these moments are funny, but it all begins to crowd the mind, and some bits are genuine overkill (like Tobey’s conversations with his inner self), a problem exacerbated by the fact that the actors start with the volume turned to 11, wearing out the audience and leaving them nowhere to amp up to.
That’s why you might start thinking, “Maybe this should have been a 30-40 minute one-act,” only to have Hurley throw you for a loop—like the scene where Spider-Man does crowd work like a stand-up (on the night I saw it, Thomas ad-libbed a clever dig at Scott Rudin that made the theater-loving crowd cackle). And late in the play, when one of the characters suffers an untimely death, it’s not only surprising, it’s executed in a way that’s laugh-out-loud funny.
By now, you may be thinking, “I don’t quite know what happens in this play but I’m curious to find out.” It’s worth it. Leaving the play, your head will still be spinning, but you’ll probably be smiling; and, despite the play’s shortcomings, you’ll probably be thinking, as my son was afterward, “I can’t wait to see what this playwright comes up with next.”
I’m Going to Marry You Tobey Maguire. Through July 29 at Nancy Manocherian’s the cell theatre (338 West 23rd Street, between Eighth and Ninth Avenues). 100 minutes with no intermission. www.thecelltheatre.org
Photos: Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade
