Ask anyone what they dreamt about last night and half of them will say that they do not remember; the other half will sit down and recite a long-winded recap of their entire REM cycle. Mary, the title character from the show Mary’s Wedding, would fall into the second category. Mary’s Wedding is about a young girl named Mary and a boy named Charlie who meet unexpectedly in a barn one stormy day. From there, they fall hopelessly in love and not even World War I can keep them apart.
There is only one catch: the entire show is a sequence of Mary’s dream. Yes, it is based on actual happenings in her life, but it is uncertain at times if what the audience is seeing is fact or an embellishment. The show was directed by Kaitlin Elizabeth Baxter ’11. At first, she was dead-set against running the show, but after she read the script, she had a change of heart. “In reading it, I found so many little relatable things that people don’t usually voice… it’s an intimate story set on a larger-than-life setting.”
Shannon Lynch ’12 plays Mary opposite Chris Sutter ’13, who plays Charlie. One of the greatest aspects of the show was the easy banter between the two of them. They honestly seemed like two lovebirds torn apart by outside circumstances. However, at times it would become confusing because the story is set up as a dream and the dream sequence starts at the end and then works its way back to the beginning. The storyline was also choppy as it required Lynch to jump back and forth between being the spunky and wholesome Mary to the stern and uptight Sergeant Flowerdew. There were moments when it became unclear if Lynch was acting as Sutter’s girlfriend or as his superior.
Other than the small amount of confusion, the show was both well-acted and well-directed. Lynch enjoyed her first experience working with a student director, saying, “It’s interesting to work with someone as your peer while taking in what they know as a director.” She also said that one of the most difficult aspects was, understandably, switching between her two characters. I would encourage anyone who is willing to go see a tragic love story comparable to that of Titanic or Romeo and Juliet in the Fred Stone Theatre to check it out. The show runs through March 27.
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