 MARRY ME A LITTLE
a revue in one act conceived and developed by Craig Lucas and Norman
Reno.
Songs by Stephen
Sondheim.
First produced at the Production Company, New York, 29 October 1980
with Craig Lucas and Suzanne Henry.
Produced at the Actors' Playhouse, New York, 12 March 1981 with Craig
Lucas and Suzanne Henry.
Produced at the King's Head Theatre, London, 7 June 1982 with Martin
Connor and Mandy Moore.
Synopsis
What can you do on a Saturday Night alone? It's
a question one young man and woman have to address as they struggle
into their respective studio apartments, burdened by plants, groceries
and that telling symbol of Saturday night solitude, the first edition
of New York's Sunday Times. This is a revue complied from unknown Sondheim
songs written between 1954 and 1973, but, unlike many revues, by the
end of the evening a sort of story has been told. The man and woman
have both just moved in to their shabby studios, proud tenants of their
first homes in New York. Actually, she lives on the floor above him,
but we see their apartments merged as one, functioning as his, hers,
both. They never meet, but they serve in each other's dreams and recollections
and in counterpoint to each other - beginning with Two Fairy Tales set
in remote kingdoms long ago and far away. "There's probably a
moral to be pointedly discussed," they conclude. How they spend
the evening and how they feel about it is told through their actions
and the songs, some of which dwell on uncomplicated pleasures (Can
That Boy Foxtrot) others which comment on the principals obliquely,
allusively, ironically. All Things Brights and Beautiful and Bang! present
two different views of love -the first, the promise of romance, the
possibility of having everything forever, tomorrow, Monday, April,
Christmas; the second, a more robust approach: the battle rages, the
trousers fall ... In their different ways, both approaches are foolish.
But what's the alternative? The woman sings of The Girls of Summer,
burned by the sun and the moon, but at least they have fun ...
In the city, though, you can always reinvent yourself.
The man recounts the tale of Hyphenated Harriet, the nouveau from New
Rochelle, whose climb to the top leaves her schizophrenically split Uptown,
Downtown, torn between champagne at the Ritz or a foaming stein of
beer. How many of us, wonders the woman, start out looking for a man
of means before realising that the man means more than the means? So
Many People in the world, but they'll never know a love like hers.
Their next song addresses one of those enduring problems of urban life:
you live across the way from a girl, you see them every day, you want
to tell her Your Eyes Are Blue but you're scared to speak; how
do you break the wall? How do you meet? When it happens, though, it's
instant: Wilbur Wright, Fred Astaire and Sigmund Freud slogged for years
before they got it right, but, when you're in love, all it takes is A
Moment With You.
Falling in love is easy, staying in love is trickier, and
the next two songs confront qualified commitment (Marry Me a Little)
and the constraints of eternal monogamy (Happily Ever After).
For some, the questions can be ducked by droll, sophisticated pleasures,
in the pink and on the green again, but strictly Pour le Sport.
But what's the point? The young man derides those Silly People who
don't know what they want and don't say what they mean, while, looking
to the future, the young woman decides that There Won't Be Trumpets to
announce his arrival.
And what of what might have been? After a date which misfires,
when the candlestick was wet and the champagne flat, the couple persuade
themselves that It Wasn't Meant to Happen. But, even as they wave
good-bye, they're drawing closer together: defense may not always be
the best form of attack, but regret can sometimes be the best means of
seduction ... The evening ends with two wistfully innocent predictions
of domestic bliss: Who Could Be Blue? in an Little White House.
We have spent an evening with two lonely, single people in their shabby
rented rooms. But, through their songs, we've glimpsed a rich and moving
fantasy life.
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