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Crazy Mary

By Matt Windman | amNewYork Theater Critic

3:30 PM EDT, June 4, 2007

Three years ago, John Patrick Shanley broke away from the confines of non-profit off-Broadway theaters thanks to his hit play ³Doubt,² which graduated to Broadway, is currently on national tour, and will soon be made into a film.

A.R. Gurney, on the other hand, has yet to receive such acclaim. Though three of his plays reached Broadway in the 1980s and his complex work ³The Dining Room² is regularly revived in regional theaters, at 76 years old, he continues to be an unfortunately overlooked American playwright. His best writing systematically deconstructs WASP culture, effectively tearing apart and rebuilding his characters.

His latest effort, ³Crazy Mary² at Playwrights Horizons, again serves to attack the upper crust. This time, his subject is Lydia, an upper-middle-class working, recently divorced mother who has set her sights on finding her long-lost second-cousin Mary, who has lived in a Boston mental institution. Lydia, as Mary¹s only living relative, believes she deserves to dip into Mary¹s huge trust fund.

When we first meet Mary, she appears as a disheveled, disoriented mute.

Things change, however, once Mary develops an unlikely attraction for Lydia's college-age son, Skip. Things get even weirder when Skip returns to visit Mary, creating a friendship that turns into a lecherous affair of ³Mrs. Robinson² proportions.

It¹s a cute concept, but Gurney¹s playwriting uncomfortably wavers between old-fashioned mental patient drama, as seen in works like ³Harvey² or ³Flowers for Algernon,² and his typical style of discarding plot in favor of character examination. Jim Simpson¹s direction does little hide the clearly flat feeling of the play.

Sigourney Weaver, in the role of Lydia, has unfortunately inherited Gurney¹s most one-dimensional character. Kristine Nielsen, as Mary, brings the play to life only at the height of her affair with Skipper, where her previously disengaged character has been revived to new sexual heights. Rather, it is Michael Esper as Skip who creates the most engaging character portrait, portraying a confused, cynical youth suddenly brought to love¹s doorstep thanks to Mary¹s tender innocence.

Crazy Mary At Playwrights Horizons, through June 17. Schedule varies, $15-$60. 416 W 42nd St, 212-279-4200