Photo Credit: Christal Wagner Photography
A young couple’s marriage is on the rocks. In The Constructivists’ production of To Fall in Love, they wage a last attempt to save their relationship by taking the 36-question intimacy survey developed by psychology professor Arthur Aron. It is an attempt to revitalize their life together and fall in love again.
The couple parry and thrust for an hour and 15 minutes, ending with four minutes of staring into each other’s eyes and wondering if the effort to continue is worth it. It’s a two-person show. Merryn (Madeline Wakley) and Wyatt (Matthew Scales) are the only actors who appear in the latter’s generic apartment. The post-split living quarters serve as the set. We learn they are both only children but with very different perspectives from that seemingly similar vantage point. Wyatt’s gilded, confident upbringing is much different than Merryn’s “black hole of need.” Likewise, refraction of their individual interpretations of shared memories demonstrate how unaware they might be of each other’s feelings.
The initial nervousness leads to sharp barbs, undercutting each other’s answers. Like peeling an onion, layers of their personalities reveal how they came to be attracted in the first place and perhaps clues to why they decide to split up. The tension leads to sexual combustion. Yet the attraction is more than simply physical. That moment allows them to open the floodgates and address the elephant in the room: the death of their five-year-old son. Again, they share fears that may or may not allow them to continue. Facing those fears and evolving as a couple are the challenge they face.
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At the plays’ conclusion, director Jaimelyn Gray addressed the audience, thanked them for attending opening night and mentioned the challenge of putting on a play in the back corner of the basement of a nearly abandoned mall. The thought-provoking subject matter and raw performances will likely attract viewers to the comfortable subterranean space.
Through April 13 at The Underground Collaborative, 161 W. Wisconsin Ave. For tickets, visit theconstructivists.org.
