Boston Marriage Through September 21; Thursday-Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 p.m.; $10-$15. Las Vegas Little Theatre, 702-362-7996.
There aren’t many writers out there who can channel Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw while bringing something new to the mix. In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to come up with a living playwright who has, other than David Mamet.
Created in the wake of a critique of his masculine subjects, 1999’s three-act comedy Boston Marriage considers a late-19th century partnership between two women that may or may not be sexual. Any production with a three-actor cast, a one-room setting and erudite, rapid-fire dialogue has to stay on its toes, and Las Vegas Little Theatre’s version is almost entirely en pointe.
Anna (played by Jessica Hird) and Claire (Natalie Senecal) are two fashionable women living by their wit and occasional dependence on benefactors. The crisis comes when Claire’s infatuation with a young woman threatens to expose Anna’s lover’s infidelities to his wife. The smart comedic dialogue runs the gamut from Anna’s refusal to learn the name and origin of her Scottish maid (“What do you want? Home rule, and all small children to raise geese?”) to theatrical, hyperbolic speeches that, despite myriad uses of florid vocabulary, are interrupted by simple forgotten nouns.
This nimble use of language requires actors who can bring to life characters that could easily be played as stock. With the occasional exception of the maid Catherine (Vanessa Coleman), “stock” doesn’t come to mind in this production, and the complexity of the dialogue must account for the occasional flubs. After all, Hird’s character almost never leaves the stage and talks in quick bursts of SAT-laden vocabulary. Her admirable performance and adorable underbite are complemented by Senecal’s execution of her character’s more accessible humor. Coleman also has a few shining moments, as in her attempts to cry into her too-short apron.
