Here we go, another tragicomedy about marriages careening and possibly flipping over the guardrail. And so we may ask ourselves, How much resilience does a marriage have? How many fissures can it endure? How long should someone fight for or hold onto a marriage before the chill of death is irreversible?
In Theresa Rebeck’s “Poor Behavior,” having its world premiere at the Mark Taper Forum, Peter (Christopher Evan Welch) and Ella (Johanna Day) have invited their friends Ian (Reg Rogers) and Maureen (Sharon Lawrence) to spend a weekend with them in their country getaway. Both couples seem to be fortyish, and to have been married for a dozen years. Although we never learn exactly what it is they do for a living, all of them are smart and well-to-do, and we can peg them someplace between the bickering couples in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and “The God of Carnage.”
The play opens with a late-night, wine-fueled discussion-verging-on-argument between Ian and Ella that dances around the subject of morality as seen through the eyes of Americans and Brits – with Ian being one of the latter. Ian, with his faun-like movements and speech patterns, forever seems to have just rushed in from performing Shakespeare. He is arrogant and unabashed, and also what we would call a motor mouth. That the others tolerate him is a bit surprising.
His wife, Maureen, is initially the scapegoat, the foil, the butt of sly jokes, especially when – early on, and the play revolves around this – she accuses Ella and Ian of having an affair. Needless to say, this is where the careening begins. In what is a perverse, fooling-with-fire move, Ian does not deny the false allegation.
Peter, Ella’s husband, at first seems calm and collected. However, his temper’s in a teapot, and so’s the tempest, waiting only for a little excess goading to let it out. Ella, for her part, is furious about the insinuations. The first act, thus, cooks everything up, and while it may not look wholly appetizing we’ll sit down in the second act for the feast, the payoff – and in many ways the meal becomes much tastier than we anticipated.
“Poor Behavior” is an entertaining and engaging polyphonic oratorio, but is Rebeck exploring new territory? Is this truly a work that probes or is it simply high-brow soap opera? A little more back story early on might have fleshed out and deepened our understanding of the characters, although if we call in the “suspension of disbelief” brigade now and again we can find the play sufficiently credible. At the very least we have a compelling, can’t-pull-your-eyes-from-it, sparring contest, with sharp jabs of humor.
Ian, and possibly one or two of the others, depending on how you slice it, might be considered a lost or floundering soul. In a sense, he’s gaming, an actor being an actor, and there is more chemistry between him and Ella than the play is leading us to believe. One of the calling cards for “Poor Behavior” is this: If they (Peter, Maureen) think we’ve already done it, is it a sin if we follow through? Ian is pushing boundaries, with heavy ramifications for all.
For those with good memories, Peter finds himself in a position previously occupied on the Taper stage by Ken Barnett as Burton in Langford Wilson’s “Burn This.” In that work, Adam Rothenberg as Pale with his disheveled ways begins encroaching on straitlaced Burton’s girlfriend, and she relents. The point is, Ian –resembling a post-arrest Robert Downey, Jr. – curries that wild, unpredictable sexual spark, and there are lots of prim young ladies who swoon for rebels. Sometimes clean-cut guys finish last.
This said, isn’t Ella bright enough to smell danger? Well, intelligent women may not always be smart women, and occasionally brains and the tug of the heart – and the loins – do not see eye to eye.
There’s plenty to think about in this work, although it’s not as deep as it could have been. Like “God of Carnage,” it indulges and captivates from start to finish, and if for no other reason than that the actors are masters of the emotive – facial and vocal – and because the direction by Doug Hughes doesn’t falter, and because John Lee Beatty has designed such an entrancing set. It’s a perfect package for the imperfect lives it contains.
Poor Behavior is onstage at the Mark Taper Forum, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown Los Angeles in the Music Center. Performances, Tuesday through Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 2:30 and 8 p.m., plus Sunday at 1 and 6:30 p.m. Dark Monday. Closes Oct. 16. Tickets, $20 to $65. Call (213) 628-2772 or go to CenterTheatreGroup.org.
