Villanova Theatre's Production Of Christopher Durang's 'Beyond Therapy' Provides Cathartic, Crazy Comedy

Theater: Villanova Theatre
Show Title: Beyond Therapy
Opened: October 2, 2007
Seen: October 10, 2007
Reviewer: Karin Suni
Submitted: October 17, 2007

While people do not openly discuss being in therapy, especially with prospective dates, the way they did in 1981 when Christopher Durang wrote Beyond Therapy, the feelings, situations and relationships still ring true… if somewhat exaggeratedly.  For its first production of the season, Villanova Theatre brings us a slightly updated version of this comedic, not-so-typical, boy-meets-girl story in which Bruce, a bisexual man who has been living with his lover, Bob, for a year meets Prudence, a high-strung, opinionated and lonely woman, via his personal ad.  Things do not go well during the date and both retreat to their respective psychiatrists.  Yet fate intervenes and oddly enough the pair once again find themselves at a table together on date.  This time around they manage to start building a relationship.  That is, until everyone else, from the psychiatrists to Bob to Bob’s mother, gets involved.  The action comes to a head back at the cafe where it all started when all the interested parties meet up and chaos ensues complete with yelling, shooting and flirting.

Because I was familiar with the play prior to my visit to the Villanova Theatre, I was curious to see how they were going to stage the variety of locales considering the set-up of their performance space and its limitations.  My curiosity sated, I was greatly impressed with the technical design for the show.  The acting area was arranged with platforms and catwalks in multiple levels to differentiate each setting.  While this could have led to distracting thoughts about looking through or past cafe tables and chairs in order to see into a psychiatrist’s office or Bruce’s apartment, it did not thanks to the actors creating a sense of space and the subtle yet effective lighting design.  The one drawback to this set-up is that the audience members on the sides of the performance area would primarily have a rear view of the actors thereby missing some of the small yet amusing shared looks and other bits of acting business.

Overall the cast does a wonderful job of bringing the hilarious absurdity of the play to life.  Carl Granieri, who plays Bruce, manages to explore his character’s wide range of emotion gracefully and pushes the limits of neurotic without going over the edge into something unbelievable and off-putting.  In particular, his scenes with Bob, played by Luke Moyer, were emotionally diverse and really established the relationship between the two men.  This success was equally influenced by Mr. Moyer who could have simply played “angry” for nearly the entire play but instead ran the gamut from annoyance to murderous rage, all the while keeping it true to the character and funny to watch.  This level of reality meant that there was still a character to be played when the anger had dissipated.  One especially well-staged scene between Bruce, Bob and Prudence, played by Rachel Anne Stephan, of a screaming and singing argument showcases the actors’ ability to draw the audience into full-fledged laughter instead of just uncomfortable chuckling at the situation.

For the most part, the rest of the cast also managed to avoid falling victim to the play’s over the top and farcical nature and created real characters out of their roles.  Jeffrey Paden, as Prudence’s psychiatrist Dr. Stuart Framingham, presents a man both smarmy and vulnerable that you can’t say you like, yet you can’t hate either.  It wasn’t until about halfway through his first scene that he slid from caricature to character, but once there, the performance blossomed.  Amy Walton, as Bruce’s psychiatrist Mrs. Charlotte Wallace, exhibited a level of insanity that most would normally expect out of psychiatric patients rather than their doctors, but at no point did it feel out of place or too much.  Her forgetfulness, inability to find the right words and occasional barking all seemed to come from the character’s core instead of just being part of the script.  Lance Mekeel, as Andrew, was the quintessential coffeehouse waiter and played well off of all of his castmates.  Ms Stephan, who was somewhat overly shrill, was at her best and most effective in her quiet moments, her outbursts of true emotion and her shared looks, such as her determined smile and nod to Bruce upon announcing her intentions to Dr. Framingham during the final cafe scene.  The Cafe Musician (Janet McWilliams), reminiscent of Lili Taylor’s character in the movie Say Anything, sings song after song on the topic of love ranging from disappointment at unrequited feelings to hormone-driven comparisons to bunnies.  Under other circumstances, the length of these songs is necessary for scene changes, however, here they throw the pacing off a little instead.

The true highlight of this show, though, is the subtle and unexpected interplay between the cafe regulars, the barista and Andrew.  Rather than having the cafe empty of other customers and the principals performing in a vacuum, the director, Dina Amin, provides a living framework that acts as counterpoint to the insanity happening down front.  This increases both the comedic value and the poignancy of the story by making it all the more real.  It also gives the audience another way to view the action.  Combined with the set design, the presence of an internal audience gives those of us out in the seats a way to break through the fourth wall and imagine ourselves as part of the scene perhaps as fellow cafe customers.  While I noticed many of these little actions, looks and moments, they never distracted my attention from the main action and only served to enrich the whole experience.