Fiancee steals show in ‘Psychopathia’
John Patrick Shanley’s “Psychopathia Sexualis” is billed as a sex farce, but it’s unlike any sex farce I’ve ever seen.
Nobody’s husband is cuckolded. No doors are slammed. Nobody sneaks into the wrong bedroom – in fact, there are no bedrooms at all. Instead, this play contains a lot of satirical give-and-take about the relative merits of Freudian vs. Jungian psychoanalysis.
This is not to say that “Psychopathia Sexualis” doesn’t provide some full-blown laughs. It does, especially in the second act. But it starts out oddly, with a character named Howard, played by Damon Abdallah, expounding to his ditzy wife Ellie (Bethany Hart) in a British accent so pompous and so plummy that I thought I had stumbled into a Noel Coward play by mistake (this was disconcerting, since the play takes place in New York).
The play ends even more oddly, with a wedding in which a psychiatrist whips out a guitar and sings a little ditty.
And in between, there’s more oddity, some of it very, very funny. It doesn’t exactly hold together for two full acts, and its intellectual psychoanalytic banter gets tiresome. Yet, I have to admit that Shanley drives the plot with an inspired bit of silliness.
Arthur, played by Dan Anderson, can’t perform sexually unless in sight of his father’s argyle socks. And his psychiatrist, Dr. Block (get it?), played by John Hart, has stolen the socks in an attempt to “cure” Arthur. Arthur is about to get married in 10 days and needs those socks back.
In true farce fashion, the characters resemble over-the-top cartoon characters instead of people who might exist in the real world. Director Reed McColm seems to have encouraged the cast to take it to the slapstick comic limit. That approach is effective in two out of the five roles.
Anderson is a hysterical mass of nerves as Arthur. At one point, he flaps his arms, twirls completely around and falls down, a la Gene Wilder in “The Producers.”
The best performance – and one of the finest comic performances I’ve seen all year – comes from Caryn Hoagland-Trevett as Arthur’s fire-breathing fiancee Lucille. She’s described by Howard as a “hillbilly Aztec Evita,” although I’d describe her as Molly Ivins in a blonde Texas debutante’s body. Hoagland-Trevett’s line-readings are deadly, her accent impeccable and her sometimes-sexy, sometimes-goofy body language (including a scene in which she’s caught in her underwear) should be studied by acting classes.
It’s not an easy role. Lucille is as tearful and vulnerable as any young bride would be upon discovering her betrothed has a secret fetish. Yet once Lucille has a good cry, she has no doubts about how Arthur should handle this problem. He needs to cowboy up.
At one point, she literally grabs the sagging Arthur by the shoulders and yanks him to his feet.
The other characters are not nearly as memorable. Nor is the play itself memorable. Yet it has enough good laughs – along with a crowd-pleasing ending – to send the audience out happy, if not psychologically enlightened.