Get It Together
Reviewed by Martίn Hernández
Zephyr Theatre
Thru Aug. 7
With its plaintive refrain of “I need you; I don’t need you,” it is little wonder that Leonard Cohen’s “Chelsea Hotel No. 2” plays a role in playwright-director Michael Quinn’s tale of two 20-somethings looking for love but unable to hold on to it when it looks them in the eyes.
Originally produced in 2018 as a one-act at Boston College, Quinn has expanded it to two-acts, a pseudo rom-com for Millennials that could well be titled When Harry Met Mary. It has a semi-autobiographical, confessional feel – Quinn’s alma mater is B.C., the male character is a student there, and the play is set in Quinn’s hometown – that is common of novice works. As such, Quinn’s play has an engrossing start yet a wobbly finish. His talent as a director, though, is more evident in his staging of the stellar performances of his two leads as they deliver Quinn’s often humorous and insightful dialogue.
Former high school classmates and now college sophomores, Harold (Joseph Basquill) and Mary (Hadley Durkee) hook up at house party in Philadelphia and sneak upstairs to a vacant bedroom. The kinetic Harold is a perennial stoner, never too far from buds or beer, while the elfin Mary is a more laid-back imbiber. They have not seen each other in years, so as foreplay they reminisce about their youth, toke up, share secrets and insecurities, and engage in a hilarious improv exercise. The diffident Mary is attracted to his brashness and Harold is enthralled by her intellect — “You know things and clearly think a lot,” he opines. “That’s cool.” But Harold eventually cops to a hurdle that may stifle any assignation between them.
There are other factors that may hold them back. Though both attend esteemed colleges, there’s a class divide between them: Mary attends on a scholarship while Harold confesses to a legal scrape for which his family’s wealth and white privilege got him a slap on the wrist, a result that upsets the working-class Mary — “You got off just fine,” she coolly laments. They are also pursuing careers in fields that thrive in isolation — for him computer programming, for her poetry – and are both products of dysfunctional families. Add the fact that Boomers have ceded to the duo’s generation an empire collapsing under the weight of climate change, corporate corruption, and political civil war and, well, what’s the point of romance anyway?
Act II has them reconnecting two years later, a little older but not that much wiser and still holding a deep connection from their last encounter. Harold, fresh from a beer-swilling, weed-infused “study abroad” trip, confesses to a string of halfhearted short-term relationships. Meanwhile, Mary, has opted for even shorter-term “trysts,” so as not to obsess over them when they are done. As the two dance around the “will they or won’t they” conundrum, Quinn seems unsure how to end the play, as displayed by the actors portraying a range of emotions — anger, tenderness, sympathy, regret — that expertly show their range and Quinn’s way with words but lead to a stilted finale.
Nonetheless, Basquil and Durkee, in depicting those emotions, have a dynamic chemistry that helps us over the bumps. Despite her waiflike demeanor, Durkee’s Mary can turn from light to dark, humor to anger in an instant, while Basquil’s Harold can do the same as he goes from bluster to vulnerability and humor to frustration.
In essence, their characters are also sides of the same academic coin, with Harold opting for the neo-liberal route more colleges offer nowadays as feeding grounds for a ravenous tech industry, while Mary goes the traditional way of academia and studies the arts. While Harold’s choice may fill his coffers and Mary’s her soul, will either fill their hearts?
Zephyr Theatre, 7456 Melrose Avenue, W. Hollywood; Fri.-Sat., 8 pm; Sun., 2 pm; thru Aug. 7. https://bit.ly/3QccZfw
