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That's a good thing, because the essential nature of this piece will hardly please everyone. Though through Emily Mann's English version of the script van Hove follows the general arc of the 1973 Swedish TV series, and the shorter film version of it that was later released in America, in reality he's created more of a theatrical response to the work than a straight Bergman adaptation. To wit: Can we predict when and how things will go awry, or do key incidents exist more in isolation than we may choose to believe? And then what happens when we must literally put the pieces back together? Van Hove and his designer Jan Versweyveld have beholden themselves to no single period or even reality; their actors appear entirely in contemporary dress, suggesting that the story they're spinning could happen anywhere at any time. As if to reinforce this, the pair has also transformed the NYTW auditorium from a typical theater into three abrasively intimate playing spaces, with the rearmost seats no more than 10 or 15 feet from the actors, that nakedly evoke the individual, haunted chapters in two people's disintegrating lives. In a living room, Johan and Marianne (Alex Hurt and Susannah Flood) witness their married friends' cruel behavior to each other, then must face the reality of having a baby neither necessarily wants. In a bedroom, a second Johan and Marianne (Dallas Roberts and Roslyn Ruff) confront questions of sexual and personal independence that are raised while trying to turn down a dinner invitation from Marianne's parents. Finally, a third couple, again with the same names (Arliss Howard and Tina Benko), split up entirely when Johan announces he's fallen in love with another woman and is leaving immediately. It's worth pointing out that you don't necessarily experience these vignettes in this order. Colored bracelets obtained with your ticket determine your starting room, and then you proceed through them counterclockwise until you've seen all three; you may view the scenes chronologically, or you may not. The specific order matters little, as you'll encounter every occurrence eventually. What changes, and what van Hove makes expert use of, is the perception that your previous viewings bring to bear on what you're watching now. This manifests itself through obvious avenues; I saw the breakup scene first, for instance, which colored how I perceived what led up to it. But because the set design separates the playing areas without soundproofing, you'll hear snatches of deafening music, screaming, slamming doors, and more wafting from theaters you're not in, but that add chilling new dimensions to whatever the performers in front of you are doing or speaking at any given moment. Later, when you've witnessed the correct context, you'll have more new appreciation for what you sat through before. The result is a complex, and incredibly compelling, layering of thoughts, feelings, and images (glass panels in each room let you see into the "backstage" area behind through which everyone must eventually pass) that could only exist in the theater, and forces you to view the characters through lenses you otherwise may not. Given that van Hove made his name in New York stripping subtext and subtlety from classic works that have traditionally depended on those qualities (A Streetcar Named Desire, Hedda Gabler), Scenes From a Marriage represents how a singularly minded artist can expand a work without ripping it apart at the seams. As to whether each of the Johans and Mariannes we meet are supposed to be the same couple over a period of time, that's more or less open to interpretation, though to my eye the answer is no. True, each of the men and women are so strikingly different from each other in style and approach: Roberts suggests a highly engaged Johan at cross-frequencies with Ruff's short-fused Earth Mother; Benko and Howard's versions obviously share a toxic, business-like sexuality; Hurt piles on the hipster as a means to connect, which Flood, by far the weakest cast member thanks to a portrayal consisting of little more than bulging eyes and nasal shrieking. (Erin Gann and Carmen Zilles show up in one scene, fine as the bickering friends; Emma Ramos is saucy but nonspecific as Johan's office love interest; and Mia Katigbak is particularly sensitive as two women who represent for Marianne the freedom she thinks she needs.) Strolling through the episodes forces you to consider the notion that the couples are variations on a theme, not the theme itself, something which van Hove then takes full advantage of. That's the second 90 minutes of the show (the first hour and a half is followed by a 30-minute intermission). The walls fly out and all three couples invade the resulting sprawling void together, attacking their differences (and each other) some time after the divorce, rearranging sparring (and make-out) partners as necessary to reinforce the Gordian knot their lives have become. It's now also that the diversity of performances becomes unavoidable and you learn, through close-ups on their psychological tactics and brawling physicality, that there's no "one" marriage here. Interpret this, if you like, as various shades of personality being brought to the forefront by new events, but it's clear that Marianne and Johan don't exist merely in the same dimension we do. Despite the effectiveness of this environmental approach on some level, this half is far less satisfying than what precedes it, in no small part because it's more maudlin, with the predictable reconciliations and rethinkings, but also because the concept doesn't completely pay off. By the end of the play, everyone else has dissolved, and only one couple remains to work out what's left of their relationship and try to move on. Everyone else has vanished for reasons that, for the first time all night, are not especially clear. Until that point, however, Scenes From a Marriage is a model of intricate clarity, exploding established structure and expectations enough that you feel you understand all the Mariannes and Johans of this world—whichever world that may be—as you never could before. It also makes you realize the unfortunate truth that in love there are no easy answers, but it offers some comfort in reminding you that everyone else is also in the same boat: paddling to stay afloat, and stay themselves, when so many forces are working against them.
Scenes From a Marriage
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