The Wedded and the Prudish
“Mom, It’s MY Wedding!” is the latest collaboration between Ilene Beckerman and Michael Disher at the Southampton Cultural Center, following last year’s “Sex: What She’s Really Thinking!” In a striking similarity to that show, new ideas are not at the forefront of this script. Surprising poignancy lurks between the jokes, however, and audience members — those who have been brides, have daughters who have been wedded off, or have simply wandered into the theater by mistake — will find themselves reaching for the tissues between giggles.
The play, directed by Mr. Disher, is blocked as a staged reading, with the actors clasping binders and occasionally standing or moving around the stage in a choreographed manner. This does not detract from the show, since most of the performers are off-book anyway, and actually adds to the feeling of being at a work-in-progress premiere, allowing a little more leeway in the judgment department.
Also, with the exception of Tom Gregory as Duane the wedding planner, the nine remaining characters are portrayed by approximately two dozen actors over the course of the run, a true ensemble piece where the words hold sway over the evening, rather than the person who utters them.
“Ilene and I wanted to hear many voices speak the words,” Mr. Disher said about the decision to shake up the cast. “So often, with a single cast or actor, we cannot discern if the power of the piece lies upon the page or within the performance. Usually one affects the other, but I wanted to test the variables.”
“Mom, It’s MY Wedding!” features the interactions among four mothers and four daughters who represent Everyman — or, in this case, Everywoman — and chronicle mother-daughter relationships from childhood and teenagerdom through the wedding, honeymoon, and beyond.
Some of the ideas seem hopelessly outdated — sex and marriage advice sometimes lapses into obsolescence with pre-1960s prudishness. Many of the women who have daughters of marriageable age now — especially New York savvy types — remember copies of “Our Bodies, Ourselves” and “Where Do Babies Come From?” being left purposefully-haphazardly on orange shag bedcovers, sometimes with notes saying, “If you have any questions, talk to me.”
Instead of that, the audience is given: “When my daughter told me she was getting married, I knew we had to talk so I told her what I once heard Joan Rivers say, ‘Choose a room to be good in, the kitchen or the bedroom.’ ” And, “My mother’s heartfelt advice? Always have some leftovers in the refrigerator, even if you have to buy them.”
Really?
Having said that, the show is funny. Positively chuckalicious. Mr. Gregory, the constant in all performances, gets some of the best moments as the Type-A sassy wedding planner (is there any other kind?) rattling off wedding costs to an apoplectic father of the bride, who muses, “Was there really a time when all a bride needed was a father with a cow?”
And in and amongst the laughter are the roses in this bridal bouquet — mothers’ reminiscences of cuddles in front of the TV, complete and unconditional love from pigtailed daughters, and in some cases their own unhappy memories of weddings past and dead parents. And in the baby’s breath, a daughter shares her reasons for wanting a perfect wedding: “It’s only one day. And after the wedding, it will all end. I’ll be Cinderella at midnight. It will all be gone. All over. And I’ll resume my life amidst all of the unnoticed and unimpressive.”
This highly stylized compilation of skits and monologues wedded together seems to be what fits best at the Southampton Cultural Center, along with cabaret revues like “The World Goes ’Round,” which was the last offering there. Like a well-planned nuptial menu, “Mom, It’s MY Wedding!” serves up tasty morsels of wit, humor, and sentimentality, with only a few overcooked cornballs in the mix.