Is it a trend? Will it pass? For the second time in less than a week a play about lesbian lovers has materialized. The first was Renae Simon Jarrett’s Daphne. The follow-up is Hansol Jung’s Merry Me. The coincidence doesn’t stop there. Both plays test audience comprehension right up to and beyond the breaking point.
Merry Me, the brain teaser under consideration here, is the result of a continuing collaboration between playwright Jung and director Leigh Silverman. According to a program note, the impetus for the new one arose in 2018 as the two were finishing rehearsals on Jung’s Wild Goose Dreams for the La Jolla Playhouse and the Public Theater. Hansol asked Silverman what their next collaboration should be. Leigh suggested that Hansol write a lesbian sex comedy.
Hansol has obliged, or at least that’s what the pair evidently think they’re presenting. Admittedly, it’s about sex, but is it a comedy? From beginning to end there is dialog sometimes clearly meant to be funny and other dialog unclearly meant to be funny. Is any of it? Early on, Lieutenant Shane Horne (Esco Jouléy), a crusading lesbian of the first rank, punningly asks Doctor Jess O’Nope (Marinda Anderson), “Is that a Jes or a no?” Readers now laughing may find Merry Me is very much their cup of tee-hee.
Throughout Merry Me there are any number of impressive references, although their accumulated meanings may not add up to anything decipherable. The title of has to do with Lieutenant Horne’s tireless campaign to give women their “merries.” (Is this a common term in certain circles, or has Jung coined it? Please advise.)
The action takes place loosely during an unnamed ancient war that sounds a lot like the Trojan conflict. Characters dubbed Private Willy Memnon (Ryan Spahn) and Mrs. Sapph Memnon (Nicole Villamil) show up with incipient marital problems further exacerbated by Lieutenant Horne. Sapph is — you guessed it! — lesbian poet Sappho. Cindy Cheung as the General Wife is addressed as Clytemnestra, whereas General Memnon is never hailed as Agamemnon. Perhaps playwright Hansol has discovered that Aga was a first name in the B. C. E.
Other allusions, innuendos, euphemisms, and double entendres concern William Shakespeare, William Wycherley and his Country Wife pretend-eunuch Harry Horner. (Likely, it’s that incorrigible Restoration comedy womanizer from whom Horne derives her moniker.) Tony Kushner’s Angels in America is invoked by way of The Angel (Shaunette Renée Wilson), who narrates the whole caboodle, and, in time, is joined by other angels. (Only one populates Kushner’s masterpiece.) Several exchanges conjure Joni Mitchell’s “A Case of You.” Melissa Etheridge’s “Come to My Window” is hurriedly mentioned, Etheridge a lesbian icon for her outspoken sexuality choice.
Synopsizing the plot is pretty much pointless. It wouldn’t go far towards revealing a logical storyline. There isn’t one. Throughout, Lieutenant Horne, often wielding an axe, continues her assault on the Memnon marriage. Perhaps understandably, she wins the Willie-Shayne tug-of-war to such an extent that vanquished Private Memnon suicides.
Does he succeed? The answer is announced from the stage — where scenic designer (Rachel Hauck) hangs paper clouds in front of a sky-blue curtain — but won’t be spilled here. Maybe more meaningful is that Private Willie, as Jung scripts him, seems to represent man at his most ineffective and is therefore superfluous in a woman-dominated society.
Quoting Merry Me speeches in a review to substantiate the head-scratching effect they have is a further waste of space. They’d seem as if pulled out of context, even though they wouldn’t have been. Okay, at one moment axe-lover Lieutenant Horne blurts, “Let me internalize my self-hatred so it can manifest in secret taboo sexual behavior that will result in a shameful merry of my own.” Huh? Wha? Ultimately, the entire enterprise has an indisputable your-guess-is-as-good-as-mine air. The result is not so much a spin on The House of Atreus as it is an introduction to The House of Fatuous.
To their credit, all seven actors perform as if they whole-heartedly believe in what they’re doing. The same goes for costume designer Alejo Vietti, lighting designer Barbara Samuels, sound designers Caroline Eng and Kate Marvin, and intimacy coordinator Rocio Mendez, who’s staying very busy these sexually liberated theater days.
So, when all is said and done, is Merry Me a jes or a no? Jes, it’s a no.
Merry Me opened October 31, 2023, at New York Theatre Workshop and runs through November 19. Tickets and information: nytw.org
