Theatre in Review: Side Effects (MCC/Lucille Lortel Theatre)

	Cotter Smith and Joely Richardson Photo: Joan Marcus

Marital meltdowns are a dime a dozen in the modern drama, which is one reason I approached Side Effects with something less than enthusiasm. Another reason is that Michael Weller's last effort for MCC, Fifty Words ran out of energy before it ran out of dialogue. But never underestimate the author's ability to spring a surprise. Side Effects may not be a major work, but it's a tricky and treacherous one; line by line, it has a malicious vitality that will keep you guessing about the fate of the troubled marriage it depicts.

Weller doesn't waste time; as the lights come up, the marriage of Hugh and Lindy Metz is coming apart at the seams. She has walked out of a dinner party that is crucial to his political ambitions, but this is only the latest in a series of provocative acts. Indeed, it only takes a minute or two to establish their differences - Hugh is deeply conventional, Lindy is impulsive and disconcertingly honest - but this is no mere Mars/Venus temperamental conflict. As Hugh says, "I don't want this to end with you stapling the curtains shut or hiding under the sink again."

What he's getting at is the fact that Lindy is bipolar, a condition she treats cavalierly at best. "Let's not have this conversation until the pills take effect," she says, tacitly admitting that she's lax about taking her medication with any regularity. "If I knew you were coming, I'd have popped a pill," she cracks, taunting Hugh when he shows up unexpectedly. Then again, she'd need an overdose to bring herself down to Hugh's emotional level. Dismissing her onslaught of feelings - and, by implication, any feelings at all -- he says, "I wonder what people find so fascinating about what are basically voices in your head." Then again, Hugh can't really afford emotions when Lindy is savaging him or laying waste to their living room.

Clearly, these two are at loggerheads and have been so since the day they met. That was in New York, where Hugh worked in international finance and Lindy was a published poet. They ultimately returned to St. Louis, his hometown, so he could take over his family's ailing bicycle business. She took a degree in education, but the move has been a disaster for them both. He has political ambitions, but he needs a compliant spouse; living in the Midwest is making her crazy, with her illness providing an additional wild card. (Don't ask about their two sons, perpetual underachievers who are forever in trouble at their posh prep school.) Making things even more volatile is the fact that Lindy can't let go of her lover, Adam, from New York. (Adam's crumbling marriage was portrayed in Fifty Words.) Explaining her attachment to Adam, Lindy says, "He was my 'in case,' in case you got fed up and did the understandable thing."

There's plenty wrong with Side Effects. Neither Hugh nor Lindy is particularly sympathetic. The dialogue is often overloaded with exposition, with Hugh and Lindy telling each other things they surely already know, in order to keep us up to speed. And there are some notably hard-to-believe plot points - would Hugh really base his decision to move the family back to St. Louis on the evaluation, by a Columbia professor, of Lindy's collected verses? (He dismisses her as just another Sylvia Plath imitator - another reason to never trust a critic!)

But Weller has a way of keeping predictability at bay, especially in his presentation of little plot points that turn into big bombshells later on. And, even after Hugh takes drastic measures to preserve some sense of peace, it's clear that he can't quite escape Lindy's allure. As the final scene shows so vividly, he may loathe her craziness, but it also provides with him a sense of illicit excitement, too.

Side Effects might not work at all if it didn't have actors of the caliber of Joely Richardson and Cotter Smith and a director like David Auburn at the helm. Fortunately, all three artists work hard at creating an anything-can-happen atmosphere that keeps you wondering what's next for Hugh and Lindy. Richardson's performance is pitched right on the line where obstreperous behavior turns into clinical evidence. She makes the most of the script's zingers - speaking of her mother-in-law, she says, "I've had 14 years to get on her good side; they say that's the tricky stretch" - but she's a little bit frightening, as well. Whether reacting to his wife in frustration, rage, lust, or an entirely assumed calm, Smith is impeccable. Together they enact a modern dance of death from which there is no obvious escape.

The action unfolds in the Metz's living room, which is nicely appointed by Beowulf Boritt. (It could be even more lushly decorated, but, MCC budgets being what they are, the designer's work is more than acceptable.) The set includes floor-to-ceiling windows at stage left, which allows Jeff Croiter to create a number of alluring time-of-day looks. Wade Laboissonniere's costumes and Scott Killian's sound are both perfectly fine.

It just goes to show that even the dullest idea can be given a shot in the arm by thoughtful, detailed writing, skilled actors, and a perceptive director. As always, the devil is in the details.--David Barbour