Theater Review—

 Mary’s Wedding:

Thoughtful, Moving, Provocative

By Julie Stern

Forward the Light Brigade

Was there a man dismayed

Not tho’ the soldiers knew

Someone had blundered

Theirs was not to make reply

Theirs was not to reason why

Theirs but to do and die

Into the valley of death

Rode the Six Hundred

Tennyson’s “Charge of the Light Brigade” is a Victorian icon celebrating the undaunted courage of the British cavalry during the 1854 Crimean War. There is, of course, an ironic tinge to it: 157 of the “six hundred” rode bravely to their deaths in a pointless charge against Russian artillery, that was the result of miscommunication between two stupid and incompetent generals who didn’t like each other. It served as a tragic foreshadowing of the “Great War” — World War I. Between 1914 and 1918, ten million soldiers died in the mistaken belief that their sacrifices were saving their country, when actually they represented the blundering of commanders chosen for their aristocratic social prominence, in a conflict prolonged by the greed of defense contractors.

The poem also serves as a recurrent theme in Mary’s Wedding, Stephen Massicotte’s moving drama about the encroachment of war on young lovers now playing at Westport Country Playhouse. Ostensibly set in 1920, on the eve of Mary’s wedding, the play experiments with time and place. Beginning at the end, it is structured via flashbacks remembered in a dream that conflates what did happen with what could have happened.

Charlie is a Canadian farm boy, who loves horses. Mary is the daughter of a patrician English family, which has recently emigrated to Central Canada. They meet while taking refuge in his father’s barn during a thunderstorm. Charlie and his horse are afraid of thunder. Mary counsels him to calm his mind by remembering a poem. He remembers the only one he knows — Tennyson.

(But the sounds of the thunder, and his inordinate terror, are more reminiscent of cannon shells and machine gun fire than a prairie downpour.)

When the rain stops, Charlie offers Mary a ride home on the back of his horse, and by the end of the ride, their hearts are pounding and they are in love. From here on, the story is pieced together through visions of their growing romance — despite her parents’ desire for a more suitable match — alternating with visions of the war. Anxious to “do his share,” Charlie enlists in the Canadian Horse Regiment. On board the troopship carrying him to France he is befriended by Gordon Muriel “Flowers” Flowerdew, a real historical figure who will go on to win (posthumously) the Victoria Cross (the equivalent of our Medal of Honor) for leading what will turn out to be the last cavalry charge in modern times.

The two performers, veterans of NYU’s famous graduate acting program, do a terrific job, including a whole lot of simulated galloping on imaginary horses (thereby maintaining the Tennyson motif).

Hannah Cabell is a very appealing Mary, whose dream takes her back and forth between Charlie’s barn and the battlefields and trenches of France. At times she also takes on the persona of “Flowers” who takes a paternalistic interest in his young trooper, listening to his letters, and advising him to be more cautious, and to try to stay alive.

Lee Aaron Rosen is a stalwart and dashing Charlie, the epitome of a brave soldier and a smitten lover, who can’t believe that a girl as well born and charming as Mary would consider the likes of him — though it makes him ecstatically happy that she does.

Donald Eastman’s realistic set of a barn, through whose openings you can see the stars, and especially Fabian Obispo’s terrific sound design — the peals of thunder, the galloping horses and the booming of the guns — are extremely effective in creating the juxtaposition of the opposing forces of the transcendental power of love, and the mindless destructiveness of war.

Mary’s Wedding is a thoughtful, moving, and provocative play, all the more so now that the casualty lists keep mounting, while the codenames and justifications for the current debacle keep getting revised.