Life In a Marital Institution
A review by Larry Litt
Life In a Marital Institution
Written and performed by James Braly
Directed by Hal Brooks
59 E 59 Theater
Feb 19 to March 16
Storytellers by nature feel their pleasure rush when they are exaggerating a bit. Most of the time life can be pretty banal. Tales on the other hand come can close to the dark edges of human adventure, without the personal risks. Of course there are performance risks, which is what makes monology so interesting for the story connoisseur.
Perhaps the teller heightens tension, compresses time, adds some tremolo as nervous laughter to the voice. Listeners will pay even more attention. James Braly uses all of these techniques and more to tell us the story of his romances, marriage and disillusionments with relationships. Because the tale is so well told we give him his due.
Braly's concept is storytelling as cathartic, purgative marriage counseling. But only for one side, his side. We never hear his wife's take, as we never hear Henny Youngman's comedy targeted wife ask, “Take my husband. Please!”
What we do learn is that Braly's family has long time relationship challenges in a big way. People come together and split apart like fissioning atoms. Lessons may get learned, then unlearned just as fast. The Bralys are passionate people who want to love and be loved. Why is it so difficult?
When Braly seeks relief from his long suffering love-hate relationships, he's as funny as Rodney Dangerfield. But he's not just another wife bashing comedian. We ask ourselves why he would suffer so long when there are plenty of other fish, err eligible women, out there. Other fish do jump out of the water to bite him as well, with their own mixed messages and conflicted emotions. He can't get away from women. He's Charlie Chaplin with a love magnet attached to his coattails.
It's Braly self-deflating, self-deprecating personality captures us from the start. He falls in romantic mud, gets up, wipes it off, then he stumbles again this time into quicksand, all the while keeping us laughing with his perfect monologue.
It's the teller not the tale is an old adage. However one man onstage revealing his neuroses about his life with women, be they lovers, wives, sisters, a mother can go either way. The audience doesn't know for sure what to expect, but it gets plenty of humor from Braly. Marriage as a combination of Heaven and Hell in entertainment is not unique. Marriage has always been the subject of theatrical art forms. Braly elevates the conflicts into a fully modern domestic New Age psychic war comedy, perhaps like the Battling Bickersons meet Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf.
Men don't figure large in James Braly's storytelling. Perhaps because this is a cautionary tale for men. For me one distinct message is listen carefully when you meet someone lovely, someone who is full of energy, brilliance and needs to lead another through life.
Braly's stage personna is a charming ladies man, a metrosexual with a puckish, witty, self-reflection masking deep domestic scars and pain. He doesn't try to escape intelligent yet crazed women. Perhaps he should. Perhaps he never learned how. But his storytelling technique is pure male reaction to relationships. He sets the audience up for ever more hysterical anti-romantic, but serio-comic adventures. We feel both female empathy and male superiority. Somewhere in there you realize you've been mesmerized by a master storyteller. When you wake up you must wonder, is he still married to that witch? Is he still suffering?
James Braly and his audience are perfectly happy now that's he's finally told the tale of his bizarre marriage to an educated, wild tarot card of a woman. He's turning tragedy into comedy for public consumption. Sure, it's still tragedy to some. Most laughed until they realized they were missing another stab at love's unknowable body. Then they listened to the story like gossips at a bar, heads shaking in agreement.
Can a man exposing his personal relationships through public storytelling ever lead a normal life again? Will he just laugh his way through life from now on? One thing I took away from this performance is that laughter may be the best marital counselor. I look forward to his further adventures.
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