Theatre in Review: The Hatmaker's Wife (Playwright's Realm/Peter Jay Sharp Theatre)

	Marcia Jean Kurtz and David Margulies. Photo: Carol Rosegg

If theatrical whimsy is to you the equivalent of one part Karo syrup and two parts castor oil, then you may want to avoid The Hatmaker's Wife, which should come with a red band on the program, with "Warning: Fable Ahead" printed in big black letters. The young playwright, Lauren Yee, certainly has a gift for language and a knack for theatricality; for this production she has been lucky enough to land a skilled director and a cast of pros who know how to get the most out of her script. But if cuteness could kill, the auditorium would be strewn with bodies by nine o'clock each night.

It begins on an unassuming note, with a young couple moving into what Gabe, the male half of the pair, calls "our shitty first house." The vulgarism is accurate; it's a true fixer-upper, with dreadful, tattered wallpaper and a few dumpy pieces of furniture left behind by God knows whom. Gabe is a schoolteacher; his girlfriend, I am sorry to report, is named Voice. A pretty cool customer, she works as a copy editor of safety manuals, and she prefers to keep things on the tepid side with Gabe. (In fact, she comes across as the kind of person who, upon turning 21, would immediately have had her name changed to something less glaringly pretentious.) The good news is, she is played by the striking Stephanie Wright Thompson, who is gifted with a strong presence and the ability to make even a dullish line sound interesting.

The moving-in process is interrupted when Voice discovers that the walls can talk -- literally. Well, at least one wall; it is played by Megan Byrne, first as a disembodied voice, then as a shadow, and finally as a rather chatty portrait. She also speaks in the comic Russian accent employed by too many characters in the play (excepting Gabe and Voice). "I am wall of truth," she proclaims, a debatable point given the twee and audience-pandering activities that follow.

Next, sheets of paper begin falling from the ceiling, each page another entry in the story of the house's previous tenants, Hetchman, a retired hatmaker, and, his spouse, the title character. We do not learn her name for a long time, largely because Hetchman has forgotten it; this alarming detail doesn't get the attention it might because Hetchman, who spends his days sitting in front of the television, is in a state of panic over the mysterious disappearance of his hat. The loss leaves him spiritually dispossessed. "Hat music," he says, "is the most beautiful thing in the world." If that line charms you, you should make a beeline to the Peter Jay Sharp Theatre, because there are plenty more where that came from.

Hetchman's wife pretends no knowledge of the hat's disappearance. ("You think I look at you every day?" she asks, dripping with scorn.) In fact, she has stolen it and sneaks off, trying to have a copy made for herself. (She wants to experience "hat music," which has eluded her until now.) Meanwhile, Hetchman falls into a depression as the house slips into disarray. ("Floor -- is full of the dust bunny!") Arriving to provide spiritual succor is Meckel, a friend who, noting that Hetchman seems "floaty," announces his plans of "loving him to the ground" with extensive hug therapy. This cues a sequence in which Meckel explains to us that babies are naturally floaty and require the grounding effects of love; he demonstrates this by hanging a baby doll on a hoist, which flies up out of reach.

There's much more, including the appearance of a "cool, stuff-finding golem" who produces a series of illuminated jars that contain various samples of Hetchman and Meckel's memories. ("The time I make longest shit on toilet," one of them fondly recalls, followed by the sound of a flush.) Other features include a trip to the cemetery for "Anniversary of Dead People Day," one character's proud recollection that "I didn't enter wife-beating contest even when there was cool prize," the subduing of the golem using a spray bottle, and the bizarre announcement that the hatmaker's wife, in her sunset years, is suddenly pregnant.

All of this turns out to have deeply personal implications for Voice -- remember Voice? -- who otherwise is made to stand upstage looking riveted at pages of prose. This is a good time to recall that, early on, Voice mentions in passing that she is an orphan. That's the most you'll get out of me; even if I wanted to explain more, I couldn't, because it doesn't really make sense.

To the extent that The Hatmaker's Wife is at all watchable, it's because Hetchman, his wife, and Meckel are played by David Margulies, Marcia Jean Kurtz, and Peter Friedman. Margulies makes Hetchman's distress into occasionally charming bits of comedy, bursting into tears at the sight of a can of nuts (after all, even Mr. Peanut has a hat); trying and failing, while seated in an easy chair, to pick up that can off the floor with a pair of pincers; and bellowing denouncements of anyone who contradicts him. Even when delivering lines that amount to so many non sequiturs ("My wife is long dead from seagull attack.") Friedman invests Meckel with a sunny nature that helps to keep things bearable. Kurtz has relatively little to do, but she is, as always, a pro, whether hurling insults, marveling over her late-in-the-day pregnancy, or gently informing Hetchman that her time on earth is limited.

In any case, Kurtz is better off than Thompson, who spends most of the play in the shadows; that goes double forFrank Harts, an affable presence double-cast in equally unrewarding roles: Gabe is underwritten to the point of nonexistence and, as the Golem, he is forced to stand around, making Frankenstein-like gestures.

Rachel Chavkin's direction concentrates on the three old pros at center stage, gambling that their way with Yee's humor will carry the day -- which I imagine it will do for some members of the audience. She has also seen to it that the production provides the right understated magic: Carolyn Mraz's unfurnished apartment set is full of clever touches -- including a night sky that suddenly appears in a doorway -- that are fully in sync with the play's magical realist style. (She also manages a clever scenic soup at the eleventh hour.) Amith Chandrashaker's lighting and Michael Krass' costumes (especially Meckel's spectacularly tasteless ensembles) are both fine. Chavkin's one miscalculation is to have Ryan Rumery, the sound designer, underscore far too many moments with tipsy waltzes and other oom-pah band melodies, all of which highlight sequences that would benefit from a more understated approach.

Then again, understatement is a foreign word in The Hatmaker's Wife, which, to be enjoyed, requires a sky-high tolerance for twee humor and characters who all but beg you to adore them, not to mention an ending that feels like something out of a Psychology 101 lesson plan.) As a playwright, Yee has a voice; now would she mind putting a little steel in it?-- David Barbour