Review - Maple and Vine: My Favorite Year

For many Americans - okay, white suburban middle classers into traditional gender roles - the 1950s was an idyllic time when the country could rest easily with our post-war status as the world's super-power before the internal unrest of the 60s began exposing the ugly imperfections. For stressed out, caffeinated 21st Century urbanites, a trip to the world depicted in period sitcoms like Father Knows Best and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet or the nostalgic recreation, Happy Days, might offer a welcome mental vacation to a less-complicated era of structured roles and lower expectations. Or perhaps even a permanent lifestyle change.

That's the clever set-up for Jordan Harrison's very funny comedy of manners Maple and Vine. New Yorker Katha (Marin Ireland) is depressed from her recent miscarriage and burning out from her high-powered publishing career. Her plastic surgeon husband Ryu (Peter Kim) is stressing out over trying to be sympathetic to his wife's needs.

But in between scenes from their marriage, the audience is introduced to what seems like a much happier couple. Dean (Trent Dawson) and Ellen (Jeanine Serralles) are spokespeople for the Society of Dynamic Obsolescence, an organization that runs a gated community where people can voluntarily live the rest of their lives in a re-creation of 1955's middle-American suburbia. As potential residents, Dean and Ellen present us with an orientation outlining what to expect.

"In the '50s you have to go places," Dean explains. "You have to talk to people. You pick up the phone to make a call and there's an operator on the other end and you say "Good morning." Or say you want to find something out, you go down to the library and Miss Wilkes looks it up in the Dewey Decimals. There's a separate store for meat, and fish, and fruit, and a gent behind each counter who knows your name."

"Here are some things you've never heard of," instructs Ellen: "Hummus. Baba Ganoush. Falafel. Focaccia Ciabatta Whole grain bread... What you get is salt."

A chance meeting between Katha and Dean spurs her interest in their six-month trial period and she convinces Ryu that it's worth a shot. Of course, being a mixed-race couple (she's white and he's of Japanese decent), they must relocate to a more tolerant section of the community. Being assigned a role where he spent the war years in a Japanese-American internment camp, Ryu is given an entry-level position in a box factory where he finds satisfaction in performing his simple repetitive task well above the expected pace. Katha grabs a cookbook and dives right into her role as homemaker. It seems that not having choices agrees with them so much that they feel comfortable with the idea of trying again to have a baby, but would it be wrong to raise a child in this environment?

Director Anne Kauffman conveys a tone that mixes dark comedy with tongue-in-cheek wholesome fantasy, but while the humor of the play is spot-on - including a climactic moment that is horrifying to the characters but hilarious to the audience - the Katha/Ryu story is a bit undercooked, as is the game-changing subplot involving Dean and Ellen which is introduced in second act.

But until the rather fuzzy ending, the terrific cast makes this one percolate. Ireland gives another one of her tremendously detailed performances in a role that finds humor in the notion that an intelligent woman who has achieved success in a highly competitive business can find joy and serenity in a lifestyle where advanced thinking is not required. Serralles is very funny as her instructor, pushing the belief that women can find a certain power in being a man's arm piece. Dawson displays an Eisenhower-era, smooth professional warmth and Kim counters with a more casual, hipster cool.

Photos by Joan Marcus: Top: Marin Ireland and Peter Kim; Bottom: Marin Ireland.

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