Review: MARY'S WEDDING at Kansas City Repertory Theatre

Their special place...

It was their special place; a run-down barn somewhere in a Canadian prairie province. Mary, a UK transplant during the early second decade of the twentieth century, has returned here for a kind of exorcism.

It is July of 1920. Mary will walk down the aisle tomorrow in the traditional white dress and veil. Mary is asleep and her dream of Charlie plays out in the non-linear fashion common to the imagination experiencing deep, REM sleep.

Reboot of live KC Repertory Theatre

"Mary's Wedding" is the first Kansas City directorial outing for newly minted Kansas City Repertory Theatre Artistic Director Stuart Carden. This small play, only 90 minutes long with a cast of two by Canadian playwright Stephen Massicotte, marks the reboot of live theater for KC Rep. Because of Covid restrictions, it is being performed outdoors on the tiered lawn fronting the sunken entrance to the National World War I Museum.

The story:

Charlie and Mary meet shortly before July 1914 when Canada enters The Great War as progeny of the British Empire. They seem to be residents of a small town in the Western provinces. Charlie has grown up on a farm and has become quite the equestrian. Mary seems to rank somehow higher in the British view of society. Her parents have emigrated from England and landed here for unexplained reasons. Mary's Mom is active in their church and its activities. She has made it clear that she disapproves of a relationship between a rural farm boy and her daughter in a way that reeks of the British class structures of the time.

Mary and Charlie had spied each other from a distance in their small town, but have not yet met. They remedy that situation during a sudden afternoon thunderstorm. Mary takes shelter in the broken down barn and invites a frightened Charlie and his mount to join her out of the downpour. Charlie has been paralyzed by the storm, odd for someone who grew up on the prairie, but an appropriate metaphor for someone who will soon face artillery and machine guns on the battlefields of the first modern war. Mary distracts Charlie with a joint rendition of "The Charge of the Light Brigade." Not surprisingly, Mary and Charlie are instantly attracted to each other.

War threatens in Europe. Charlie sees his patriotic and romantic (in the classic sense) duty as serving Canada as a mounted soldier. He promises to write every day and does, but it is here that the dream state takes over and a series of actual and imagined vignettes play out in Mary's somnolent reverie. It can be hard to follow.

The result is a challenge for the actors. Charlie, portrayed by Sam Cordes, and Mary, portrayed by Bri Woods, step in and out of their actual characters, frequently break the fourth wall, and address the audience directly. Mary reads Charlie's letters and sometimes even acts them with him although we know they cannot possibly be together because he is in Europe. It is obvious that Mary's dream state is playing tricks with her memory.

The script also requires Mary to become Flowers, Charlie's commanding officer, and eventually play out the penultimate cavalry charge and death scene. Flowers is based on an actual World War I Canadian hero.

This is all tough stuff for actors. Both Cordes and Woods are up to the challenge.

Multiple levels of meaning...

"Mary's Wedding" attempts multiple levels of meaning. There is, of course, the love story, the horrible losses of war, the class struggle, the final last gasps of romanticism, and more. The language used is, at times, lyrical. "Mary's Wedding" seems a tad ambitious on the part of the playwright, but the piece has been produced many times since it first appeared two decades ago and what do I know?

It is ironic that I should have seen the first performance in KC on the very day that thirteen U.S. Marines died while trying to execute a humanitarian exit from Afghanistan. The divvying up of the spoils at the end of The Great War continues to create destructive echoes in that portion of the world from a century in the rear view.

A preview showing...

I saw what would ordinarily be a final dress rehearsal. There were some unfortunate external distractions in the outdoor venue.

Some can be controlled. Hordes of children screaming on the memorial and taking selfies during the performance, couples loudly discussing their day on their cell phones, and tourists crossing repeatedly behind the set might be modified positively with signs simply suggesting courtesy for the actors and audience. Less can be done about the police sirens in the neighborhood and aircraft flying overhead.

Well done... emotional... worth seeing

"Mary's Wedding" is a good show produced in challenging circumstances, but well-acted and expertly directed. It is worth seeing and I recommend it as a very nice restart to live theater from KC Rep.

Kansas City Repertory Theatre's production of "Mary's Wedding" continues through September 19 at the World War I Museum grounds. Tickets are available online at www.kcrep.org.

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