How to Transcend a Happy Marriage

How to Transcend a Happy Marriage

The Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater

April 15, 2017

Photo courtesy of Lincoln Center Theater

Transcend: to go beyond the limits of all possible experience and knowledge; being beyond comprehension.

In How to Transcend a Happy Marriage playwright Sarah Ruhl explores what lies beyond the boundaries of societal definitions of relationship, marriage, and family to find a quality of love, acceptance, and happiness that is greater than the expected.  Through magical realism, she skillfully transports the audience into the experiences of the characters and induces an intense level of reflection on their journey.

Jane (played by Robin Weigert) tells her husband, Michael (played by Brian Hutchison), and her best friends George and Paul (played by Marisa Tomei and Omar Metwally) about Pip, a temp at her office who hunts and slaughters her own food and is living with two men in a polyamorous relationship.  The curiosity of the two couples is aroused, so they decide to invite Pip (played by Lena Hall) and her two male companions (played by David McElwee and Austin Smith) to a dinner party on New Year’s Eve.  This encounter sets these two happily married couples on a journey of no return.

Photo courtesy of Lincoln Center Theater

In Act I you get a visceral sense of the characters’ discomfort with themselves when the movement, costumes, and dialogue seem stiff and choppy.  This sense is heightened when juxtaposed against the flow, smoothness, and ease of their invited guests.  Act II delves deeply into the psyche of George (Marissa Tomei’s character) as she struggles to transcend the defined boundaries she has accepted for herself.  The bond Ms. Tomei creates with her fellow actors (Robin Weigert, Brian Hutchison, and Omar Metwally) is strong and genuine.  They all resist and grapple with the truth as they allow their characters to look at their lives from a new perspective.  Ms. Ruhl finds the poetry and music in these characters tumultuous experiences that brings intellectual and emotional understanding of their growth and change.

Marissa Tomei & Lena Hall
Photo courtesy of Lincoln Center Theater

The parallels between the character of Pip and Roman mythology’s Diana, goddess of the hunt, moon, and birthing, and associated with wild animals and woodland, is superbly constructed.  The triad Diana made between the water nymph Egeria, and the woodland god Virbius is reflected in Pip’s polyamorous relationship.  Through these mythical images and the psychological and carnal impulses they arouse, the characters unearth deep-seeded realizations about the lives they have settled into.  In an emotional moment at the end of Act II, Jane blurts out that in order to bring children into the world you have to release your inner animal, and you then spend the rest of your life hiding that animal side from them.  This is one of the many profound insights the characters are propelled to face.

If you are a fan of Sarah Ruhl’s work, you will definitely find this play worth seeing.  The cast is excellent, the directing (by Rebecca Taichman) is unified, and the writing is authentic.  How to Transcend a Happy Marriage is playing at Lincoln Center’s Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater through May 7.

Domenick Danza