BWW Reviews: MARY-KATE IS IN LOVE Invades Studio 2ndStage

Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, the child stars who recently declined to be involved in the upcoming revival of TV's "Full House," are still alive in the memory of young millennial women of a certain age. The twins, who took hold of their careers at 18 with a series of films and videos before moving into fashion design, are among the most successful young celebrities of their generation (still, you have to ask: where is their reality show?).

Their personalities, or their perceived personalities anyway, permeate a new play by Mallery Avidon at 2nd Stage Studio, Mary-Kate Olsen is in Love, where the two appear as ditzy, shopping-driven fairy god sisters.

They arrive at first in dreams to help pull a poor women named Grace out of her doldrums.

Grace is only 27, but already in a deeply-hewn rut, earning the bread at a job she doesn't particularly like after doing everything right, according to her plan: good student, college, marriage, home. But her husband pretty much fizzled when a start-up he worked on did, and now he just plays video games and smokes pot all day. A deep funk has taken hold in their home and they barely communicate.

Then Mary-Kate and Ashley show up with some plans for shaking things up involving sexual advice, life coaching and of course, shopping. Ashley is discouraged about how little progress they make, but Mary-Kate devotes more time, eventually convincing Grace to drop out altogether and go to an exotic beach.

Whether two glammed-up celebrities can actually help this couple remains to be seen, since her husband Tyler has his own ghosts to battle, particularly a soldier from the video game he's been playing, who jumps out of the screen and tries to beat some sense into him.

The slacker husband seems to becoming a theme at Studio. Last season featured a similarly tenuous relationship in Amy Herzog's Belleville. Hope this isn't an indication of widespread disorder, though perhaps it is.

Amid this disheartening household, Avidon's play provides the kind of punch one might expect when using pop culture figures to drive your narrative. And the work is given a fine treatment in director Holly Twyford's production.

Katie Ryan makes for a fine Grace - with a mix of serenity and frozen emotions that makes her numb to her situation and possibly open to a change. Daniel Corey looks like he's been up for a couple of days as he single mindedly plays his video games. The two of them are on stage in separate couches off in their different worlds even as the audience files in for the performance.

Suzanne Stanley and Sara Dabney Tisdale make for a fine Mary-Kate and Ashley - all pop-eyed emotions and shopping bags. The declarative way they say each line speaks both to their shallowness and what they think is being direct. The important thing about playing people who are already perceived as cartoons is knowing where to reign it in, and the two wisely know how to hold back.

Christian R. Gibbs isn't given much of a chance to break out of his one dimensional role as soldier (indicating the playwright might know more about celebrity sisters than the military). But there is a lot to be said for a handful of young women, each identified in the program as "Amazing Girl," who flit on and off stage, singing pop tunes and listing their hopes for the future.

Erin Craig, Kayla Dixon, Kaycie Goral, Tuyet Gunter and Mariana Taitano all have fine voices and are compellingly convincing in their individual confessions. That their dreams for a perfect future provide stark contrast with what's happened to Grace, who probably harbored the same sunny hopes in high school, giving the work the poignancy and heft it desperately needs.

The strong work on stage extends to the technical achievements. Paige Hathaway's set is a mix of hyper-real trash stuck under dirty couches, stacks of empty pizza boxes and hand-drawn walls of bookshelves, broken blinds and too many farmer's caps on a hat rack. Adrian Rooney's lights have just the right flickers from the ongoing action from unseen screens; James Bigbee Garber has nice touches both in the TV audio and the sound of a faraway dog barking every time the annoying morning buzzer goes off.

Kara Waala's costumes depict the blandness of the everyday, and the celestial white of the Amazing Girls as Greek chorus while dealing convincingly with the crucial garb of the twins.

Without a big ending with which to make its point, however, ultimately, Mary-Kate Olsen Falls In Love can't quite deliver on its promise - rather like the life of Grace, or an old Mary-Kate and Ashley video.

Running time: 70 minutes, no intermission.

Photo: Sara Dabney Tisdale, Katie Ryan and Suzanne Stanley in "Mary-Kate Olsen is in Love" at Studio. Photo by C. Stanley Photography.

"Mary-Kate Olsen is in Love" runs through June 21 at Studio Theatre's 2ndStage, 1501 14th St. NW, Washington, D.C. Call 202-332-3300 or buy tickets online.

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