Greenhouse Theater Center & Proxy Theatre MIDSUMMER Review

A highlife and a lowlife

By turns riotously funny and dolefully honest, Chaon Cross as Helena and Patrick Mulvey as Bob express inner thoughts to the audience as they rediscover themselves through each other. Their running commentary includes the time of events down to the minute, beginning with a chance meeting in a wine bar on a Friday night. It’s a place, Bob observes, full of “lawyers poking at their salads.” Helena is one of those lawyers, but she doesn’t have a healthful salad, just a bottle of wine. She seldom does what’s good for herself.

When her married lover stands her up via text, she approaches Bob, sitting alone with a copy of Dostoevsky, to share her wine. A thoughtful man, Bob is no better than Helena when it comes to doing what’s good for himself. He scratches out a living from petty crimes that are supervised by a thug named Tiny Tom. Highlife Helena and lowlife Bob drink themselves into a stupor and end up in Helena’s upscale apartment. As gifted physically as they are vocally, Cross and Mulvey manage to be convincing yet tasteful in their wild lovemaking.

Elmo and a ukulele

Directed by Randy White, Grieg’s script undercuts nearly every moment with something irreverent that nonetheless rings true. Amid bedroom gymnastics, a mechanical voice intones “Elmo wants a cuddle.” The couple pull Elmo from the bedsheets, left behind after a visit from Helena’s young nephew. When Helena puts the toy on a stool, Bob insist on turning its face to the wall.

In a scene that strikes this viewer as worth the price of admission, Bob leaves Helena’s apartment afterwards and has a conversation with his penis. “Everything I do, I do for you” he tells it. The morning after, Helena muses to herself, “If my hangover was a dog, he’d be dead.” Adds Bob to himself, “If my hangover was a ship, it would sink.” And so goes the gallows humor.

Specifically described as “a play with songs,” MIDSUMMER has Cross strumming a ukulele and Mulvey a guitar as they bookend scenes with the music of Scottish indie composer Gordon McIntyre. The lyrics lend a touch of rom-com – “Love will break your heart in two” – while the script itself hits tougher notes.