Theatre in Review: Big Love (Signature Theatre)It is a great pity that Tennessee Williams sewed up the title Slapstick Tragedy 50 years ago, because it would be absolutely perfect for the conniption fit currently unfolding at the Signature. Playwright Charles Mee has taken The Danaids (aka The Suppliants), a fragment of a trilogy by Aeschylus, and run it through the postmodern Mixmaster, resulting in a bright, loud, shiny phantasmagoria that perplexes more than it entertains or enlightens. The action begins with a young woman named Lydia arriving at a seaside home in Italy. She breaks into the house, strips off her filthy, tattered wedding dress, and slips into a bathtub. She is discovered by a young man named Giuliano. "It's your home," she cries. "It's so big, I thought it was a hotel." While she says this, she wipes herself off with that bridal gown. She is soon joined by two more young ladies, Olympia and Thyona, bearing piles of designer luggage. It turns out that they are part of a complement of 50 brides who have fled a mass wedding ceremony to 50 of their cousins. To underline this point, they pick up handheld mics and belt "You Don't Own Me." Soon after that, they run into the side walls of the set, cueing projections of breaking glass. The brides are a varied lot. It is Thyona's opinion that "the male is a biological accident." She adds, "Boy babies should be flushed down the toilet at birth." Perky OIympia was really looking forward to all those wedding gifts; Thyona, having none of this, remarks, "You're the kind of girl who ends up in a ravine somewhere with your underpants over your head." When their three fiancés enter, dressed in black like hit men, by shimmying down ropes, we see that Thyona has a point. Constantine, the most aggressive of the three, says, "Do you know what happens when an American wants something?" (Since they are supposed to be Greek, it is unclear what this means, except as an easy, lazy joke designed to strike a political point.) Then all of the men leap into a rendition of "Bad." Thyona's comment: "This game isn't over until someone lies on the ground with the flesh pulled off of her bones." Basically, Mee has taken Aeschylus' 50-brides-for-50-cousins scenario and rendered it as a series of brightly colored cartoon panels informed by manic-depressive tonal shifts -- to what end I cannot say. Giuliano, who is gay, returns to gush about his Barbie and Ken doll collection, then sits down to a white baby grand, delivering a torch song about a man who got away. Just as the brides threw themselves against the wall, all three grooms throw themselves to the floor, accompanied by booming sound effects, followed by Constantine making a speech defending male aggression as "the foundation of society." The wedding ceremony is finally held, but it descends into total chaos: One groom's throat is cut; another groom is relieved of his penis, which is thrown into a blender; several characters deface the walls of the set; and the frantic action pauses only so two characters can sing "Summer Nights," from Grease. Mee has thrown everything he can think of into this hellzapoppin' effort, but what he hasn't managed to do is write any scenes -- humorous, tragic, or whatever -- that lead to anything like drama. The conflict at the heart of Big Love is fundamental to human existence -- especially, when issues of consent and power imbalances in sexual relationships are the subject of so much debate -- but the joined battles of opposing ideas or world views never take place. Whatever the author is getting at is smothered under a ton of shtick, mostly of it dismayingly cutesy. Tina Landau, the director, has worked up a circus of gimmicks, and much of the cast has seemingly been urged to strike a series of poses. Rebecca Naomi Jones' Lydia is a little more interesting than her sisters, because she is the only bride with a decent groom (Nikos, played with refreshing naturalism by Bobby Steggert), and, as a result, something actually seems to happen between them. The others -- brides and grooms alike -- mostly overact, desperately, reiterating their positions over and over. As Piero, the brides' reluctant host, Christopher Innvar creates a believable character -- a worldly, faintly aristocratic Italian male -- out of practically nothing. As another guest of the house, the fine character actress Ellen Harvey is left to wander about, acting festive, accompanied by an opera singer (Nathaniel Stampley) whose presence is never fully explained. The best work by far comes from Lynn Cohen as Piero's mother, especially in a monologue in which she details, in no uncertain terms, her varied feelings for her many sons. In a production in which style seems to matter above all, Landau has certainly overseen a splashy production design. Brett J. Banakis' extremely attractive set depicts an all-white villa placed against a drop depicting the Mediterranean; overhead, hanging from the grid, is a field's worth of dried flowers. The walls of the set serve as a fine surface for Austin Switser's projections of water, flocks of birds, and other scenes from nature. Scott Zielinski's lighting flexibly captures each new mood. Anita Yavich's costumes are chic and attractive for the most part, and suitable for each character. Kevin O'Donnell's elaborate sound design includes excerpts from the Top 40 and the opera repertory both, along with a variety of effects, including a barrage of sound during the mayhem-filled climax. An enormous effort has been made to realize every moment to the fullest in Big Love, but you know what Shakespeare says about sound and fury. Each of them exists as an individual episode, unconnected to anything else. Cohen, the most assured performer on stage, is given the final speeches about love being the highest law -- and, despite the lady's soothing tone of sweet reason, it suddenly dawns on one that ,without the projections, the musical numbers, and the physical stunts, all that Big Love has to offer are generalities bordering on clichés. That's the real tragedy. -- David Barbour 
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