Thayne Lamb and Sydney Crumbleholme in Marry Me a Little
Sometimes in theatre, leaving a little to the imagination is a good thing, and at the Playcrafters Barn Theatre on Saturday night, director Jake Ladd missed the mark with his pre-show announcements. Of course we should all silence our devices and not take pictures. But Ladd went on to explain how Marry Me a Little came to be. And while that information was also available in the program's director’s notes, I didn’t feel that added attention needed to be drawn to the fact that its score was composed of previously written rejects – songs cut from other musicals either produced or abandoned – later recycled and rustled up for this show. Marry Me a Little or Secondhand Sondheim? I fear Playcrafters' latest tends toward the latter.
Featuring only two actors, Marry Me a Little involves The Boy (Thayne Lamb) and The Girl (Sydney Crumbleholme) – upstairs/downstairs apartment neighbors in New York City – and this piece, with no spoken dialogue, is told only through numbers boasting music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Yet even with the songs, the show felt disjointed, and I never truly understood what creators Craig Lucas and Norman René wanted us to take from this collection.
Unfortunately, Playcrafters opted not to put a song list in the program, which makes it difficult for me to talk explicitly about the show’s musical highlights. A shame, really, because Lamb and Crumbleholme, le3d by music director Jonathan Turner, sounded beautiful. Turner also played the recorded accompaniment, though I do wish that he or Ladd had opted to underscore the snippets of scenes that weren't performed in song. The silence was at best startling and at worst awkward. (And when the air conditioner was blowing, the gels on the lights not only flapped annoyingly, but made the stage silence feel extra-long.)
I was shocked when this production that was fashioned as a one-act suddenly had an intermission, but perhaps the actors needed a water break. Given the manner in which Ladd designed and staged Marry Me a Little, the playing area served as apartments C2 and C3. Kathie Kloster Burnett and Kendall Burnett built this cool locale to simultaneously be Boy’s and Girl’s dwellings with a comforter that was split right down the middle and lots of shared set pieces to make it feel like home. With Lamb and Crumbleholme onstage together for much of the show, and singing throughout, I can imagine how that could warrant a mid-show break.
One thing that bothered me in the first 10 minutes was that both Boy and Girl made a big deal of coming home with their hands full and putting things where they belonged, including hanging their coats up … and then they both kept their shoes on, even when they sat on the bed. (Have you been on a New York sidewalk? Because I guarantee those shoe bottoms were gross.) It didn’t seem to make much sense for two people who were firmly in for the night. Ladd also started his production with illumination from a naked light bulb. But just as I was about to lose my mind from the bare, bright light hurting my eyes, Ladd had Girl add a shade to it – a nice, homey touch that literally and figuratively set the stage.
Still, a few other directorial choices confused me. Girl came home and set carrots on the table the first time we saw her, then deep in the second act, eventually ended up using the vegetables as a comical prop for a song – but having the root vegetables just sitting on the table for so long seemed questionable. Also perplexing was why Crumbleholme's character wrapped her hair in a towel turban only to take it out after just a moment, and why she later appeared in a silk bonnet that was ultimately hung on her bed. All that stage business just didn’t seem realistic.
Lamb and Crumbleholme, however, are quite a pair for two people who – as the Marry Me a Little setup makes clear – aren’t truly interacting. In fact, there's just one moment in which Boy and Girl do connect, and sadly, it was fairly anticlimactic given that these two artistic souls lament about being home alone on a Saturday night. Yet despite the figures' solitary nature, Ladd routinely had these characters dancing together, the highlight, for me, being “Pour le Sport,” a funny little number about golf. In this musical that's essentially a revue, one really has to lean into the abstractness of it all, and even then, there’s not really much plot to be had.
Make no mistake: Lamb and Crumbleholme are on-stage delights, and though the actual music may be Sondheim’s “trash,” these two make it seem much more like melodic treasure. (I was pleasantly surprised when Crumbleholme began singing “Anyone Can Whistle,” as I honestly expected not to know any songs over the course of the evening!) Overall, I appreciated the performance despite my puzzlement over particular directorial decisions. Marry Me a Little's leads are a fun duo to watch, and the music, though I couldn’t identify much of it, sounded great. Sondheim fans should be delighted.
Marry Me a Little runs at the Playcrafters Barn Theatre (4950 35th Avenue, Moline IL) through June 1, and more information and tickets are available by calling (309)762-0330 and visiting Playcrafters.com.
