‘Beyond Therapy’ a Blind Date With the 20th Century

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Photo Credit: Erico Ortiz

It’s 1979 in New York City, and Bruce and Prudence meet in a restaurant. It’s a blind date set up through posting an ad in a newspaper. Yes, people actually met that way more than 40 years ago. Christopher Durang’s Beyond Therapy provides plenty of timely reminders of the past with dated references like that one.

So, what exactly was life—and dating and relationships—like way back in the 20th century? According to these characters, Prudence (Bailey Haag) sleeps with her therapist; Stuart (Derek Jacobs) continues to “make the moves” on Prudence during sessions; and Bruce (Tom Forshee) has a male lover, Bob (Jeff McMahon), and a therapist, Charlotte (Maggie Wirth), who constantly forgets who Tom is and ends up talking more about herself; then there’s Andrew (Randall J. Tranowski), who runs the restaurant where waiters are virtually impossible to find.

In this Village Playhouse production, director Elizabeth M. Havican tries to make the most of a time-worn script that definitely shows it age with constant dated references to serial killer “Son of Sam,” the Plato’s Retreat swingers club and a host of other cultural markers that distract in 2020 rather than move the story forward. In our time of #MeToo and LGBTQ rights, predatory professionals like Stuart and denigrating comments about sexual orientation (from therapist Charlotte, no less!) only reinforce negative stereotypes, reducing the characters to cartoon caricatures… at best. But, the cast does manage to pull out the humor, for the most part, in this surreal farce, proving that laughter can, at times, be more therapeutic than a weekly visit to you-know-who.

Through Feb. 23 at Village Playhouse, 1500 S. 73rd St.