(a)Symmetry Cycle at the Viaduct Theatre: Live review
Posted in Theater by Kris Vire
Review by Melissa Albert.
Playwright Chelsea Maureen Marcantel’s three-play (a)Symmetry Cycle runs through July 25 at the Viaduct. We sent TOC reviewer Melissa Albert to check it out; her review is below.
photo credit: nk Mooneyham
It’s not every relationship drama that cites science consultants among its crew bios. But playwright Marcantel’s three-play cycle seeks to train a spotlight on the brain-addling chemical cocktail of romantic contact, and throw into relief the opposing forces of free will and biological imperative. Exhaustive discussions of neuro- and pop science are folded into the three-part narrative of a year in the life of six bed-hopping twentysomethings. The attraction triangle at the story’s heart finds neuroscientist Alice deliberating between a safe bet (fellow scientist Peter) and a long shot (Isaac, her shiftless childhood sweetheart), both of whom insist on reducing her to chemical urges, to be taken advantage of or overridden. Within close range of this toxic trio, Alice’s needy roommate, Arlie, attempts to hold onto her commitment-shy girlfriend, and Peter’s brother discovers that there may be more to love than banging waitresses.
In its most didactic moments, the cycle feels, as one character would have it, like a “sitcom for super nerds,” but taken as a whole, this funny, agile narrative is both moving and revealing. Its characters are generously written and sensitively performed, fully realized despite the potentially disconnecting use of different actors in each of the three plays. In fact, one of the most exciting elements of (a)Symmetry Cycle is the opportunity to see three performers’ takes on the same characters. It makes the late introduction of a seventh character, Isaac’s abandoned wife (Bergen Anderson), particularly effective: That hers is the only role played by a single actress strengthens her position as the one grounded presence among six schizophrenic searchers.
The length of the piece (five hours if seen end to end; the plays are also running singly) allows Marcantel to develop an affecting textual echo chamber: Snippets of dialogue are recycled, passing fluidly from the mouth of one character to the next and accruing into drifts of relationship-speak, as universal and inevitable as the body’s chemical responses. In the second of the three plays, Dumbspeak, two iterations of Alice and Isaac (Stacie Hauenstein and Drew Longo) have a palindromic lovers’ spat, which uses a single chunk of dialogue, repeated twice, to show how the language of lust and argument can be identical. The falsity of memory is movingly explored in the third piece, Blindsight, as the spurned Arlie (Megan Gotz) faces off again and again with a remembered version of her ex, unwieldy even in retrospect. The same can be said for Marcantel’s cycle, an ambitious achievement that, due to its challenging length, may not find the wider audience it deserves.
