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Permission, an MCC Theater production at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, focuses on two couples and their experiences with CDD, which posits that the wife must be submissive to the husband in all things. Part of the pact is that the husband metes out punishments, including spankings, whenever the wife strays from the prescribed path. Set in suburban Waco, Texas (a framed Baylor U shirt is prominently displayed in case we need a reminder of the locale), Permission introduces us to the couples over dinner in the home of Zach and Michelle (Lucas Near-Verbrugghe and Nicole Lowrance). It is obvious from the sniping remarks between their guests, Eric and Cynthia (Justin Bartha and Elizabeth Reaser), that the pair is in the midst of a dispute. The genial Zach tries to shift the conversation along more amiable pathways, but we also notice that he is eyeing his own wife, and gesturing to her whenever she commits a misstep—by first raising one finger, then two, then finally three. At the count of three, Zach asks Michelle to join him in the kitchen. Cynthia gleefully runs to the door to listen in, and Eric comes behind and opens it to see what is going on. Sure enough, true to the CDD creed, Michelle is bent over Zach's knee, and he is administering corrective spankings, an image that sends Eric and Cynthia fleeing from the home. By the start of Act II, however, they, too, have become dedicated devotees to the practice. The rest of the play deals with the impact on both couples and takes us giddily into "Fifty Shades of Grey" territory, but it also caroms into too many tangents that cause it to lose its way. It is easy to see the potential for taking this premise into any number of directions: an out-and-out gag-filled comedy, dark satire, or even a serious exploration of male/female relationships within a religious context. But the playwright has not been able to commit specifically to any one of these and, instead, has opted for all-of-the-above. There are a lot of comic moments and snappy dialog, to be sure, including a very funny bit of libidinous slapstick in Act II, but these do not always serve the ongoing storyline. There also is a distracting subplot involving Eric and a student worker (Talene Monahon) at the university where Eric is a faculty member. There is no faulting the acting, and the cast members, under the direction of Alex Timbers, manage to switch performance styles with great skill in accord with the play's shifts in tone. Mr. Near-Verbrugghe is especially appealing as Zach, a good old boy who is in over his head and who absolutely needs his wife to keep him on the straight and narrow. Indeed, the play makes it clear that it is the women who control the situation ("You're in charge when I say you're in charge," Michelle pointedly tells her husband), and perhaps, given the play's title, that is the key understanding we are meant to walk away with. As it stands, however, Permission, running a little over 100 minutes with intermission, is in need of trimming and reshaping in order to bring it into focus.
Permission
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