There’s a lot of poetry bandied about in 
Stephen Massicotte’s touching dream play now at Next Act. Since the time is the early 20th century, most of it is Tennyson, and in true Tennyson fashion, nobility and romance are eked out of the more complicated events of day-to-day life. Stoked by Tennyson’s romantic notions of love and war, we’re prepared to follow Massicotte’s characters into the dream world he creates out of some weathered barn boards and a stack of letters. It’s a sweet fantasy, but it’s in the service of some cold hard truths.
The truth is in the details, and Massicotte’s lovely language is well-grounded, but aspires to its own sort of poetry. It doesn’t overshoot the mark (as a similarly poetic play, last year’s The Pavillion, did). The narration is vivid, but the relationship between the young lovers, Mary and Charlie, is rendered in charming, everyday exchanges. We witness the dawning of their love as well as their separation, moving back and forth between their meeting in a small Canadian town, to the letters Charlie writes after he ships off to France to serve in a World War I cavalry brigade.
Director Edward Morgan manages this time travel deftly, letting the story move forward with an easy gentleness even as it becomes more harrowingly real. And he couldn’t have found a better pair of actors to populate his flesh-and-blood dreamscape. Braden Moran’s Charlie is sweetness and brawn, with a farm boy’s sensibility scrambling to catch up to the adult world he’s thrown into. As Mary, Georgina McKee finds a perfect balance of confidence and vulnerability. As a polished English transplant in a strange Canadian world, McKee shows us how Mary’s tentative fascination blooms into flirtation and eventually full-bodied love. There’s scarcely a kiss or two through the whole 90 minutes of Massicotte’s play, but Morgan creates a captivating journey of tenderness and desire. Tragically, as in the most famous dream play of all, it ultimately proves as fragile as a menagerie made of glass.
Review- “Mary’s Wedding” at Next Act
There’s a lot of poetry bandied about in Stephen Massicotte’s touching dream play now at Next Act. Since the time is the early 20th century, most of it is Tennyson, and in true Tennyson fashion, nobility and romance are eked out of the more complicated events of day-to-day life. Stoked by Tennyson’s romantic notions of love and war, we’re prepared to follow Massicotte’s characters into the dream world he creates out of some weathered barn boards and a stack of letters. It’s a sweet fantasy, but it’s in the service of some cold hard truths. The truth is in the details,…
