Review - MMF by David Kimple, at The Kraine Theater 85 E. 4th Street, Lower East Side Manhattan NYC
Review - MMF by David Kimple, at The Kraine Theater 85 E. 4th Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan (NYC)
August 22, 2014
Dean: Mike Mizwicki
Jane: Courtney Alana Ward
Michael: Andrew Rincón
I attended this performance with my partner Anais_pf; what had brought it to our attention was a mention on a polyamory-related website, describing it as a new play about the breakup of a polyamorous relationship. Or, to quote directly from the blurb, "When Dean, Jane and Michael's polyamorous relationship comes to an end, the trio is forced to deal with the consequences of love in a nontraditional relationship. MMF explores the realities of love, need, want and people who don't know the difference."
I am polyamorous myself (I have two other partners in addition to Anais) and all of my partners either currently have or in the past have had other partners, whom I've known and hung out with, as well as meeting many if not all of their partners. Because issues and problems that affect polyamorous relationships are sometimes unique to polyamory, and even those that are not often take on additional complexities in a polyamorous situation, we often attend presentations and read books and listen to podcasts about how to deal with such things as polyamorous people, so I was anticipating that MMF would explore the additional complexities and special circumstances involved in the breakup of polyamorous relationships.
The play wasn't at all what I expected. Of course, in the theatre, getting something other than what you were expecting isn't necessarily a bad thing.
SYNOPSIS: Dean, Jane, and Michael are mutually romantically and sexually involved as a triad. This is a situation that emerges from, first, Dean and Michael meeting cute and Michael staying at Dean's, and then, before they've really jelled or decided they wanted to be each other's boyfriend, Jane saying hello and becoming involved with both of them and moving in as well. (Hence, none of the three of them sought out a polyamorous situation on purpose.) The three of them apparently thrive for awhile as a happy triangle until, at some point, they don't. We're brought into the story by Dean's reminiscences at some point after the breakup, as he thinks back on how it all happened: how they became involved and how the breakup transpired. Within the first 4 minutes of the lights going up, Dean states that he's missing someone he is "NOT SUPPOSED TO miss", which both introduces the reminiscences and sets the emotional tone of the threesome's knotted tangle of unspoken rules and undefined obligations.
Playwright David Kimple chose to skip between timeframes, bouncing between the Dean of the current moment (as he ponders his memories and listlessly interacts with Jane) and the earlier period that he's recalling for us. This trope enables him to reveal the structure of the breakup chronology in a sequence more interesting and suspenseful than a chronologically linear telling might be capable of, but often at the expense of clarity. At several points, individual dialogs and interactions were presented that left me confused about the order in which things had happened: a discussion between Jane and Dean about Jane's family coming to meet him seemed to occur before Dean and Michael met, creating the initial impression that Jane and Dean had been together first. The overall picture was filled in for us in disjointed segments and only became clear as it became more complete towards the end.
Mike Mizwicki, Courtney Alana Ward and Andrew Rincón gave a compellingly stark and believable portrayal of anguished individuals in interaction. Their respective characters, Dean Jane and Michael, exuded a most infectious frustration that quickly made me want to backhand each of them in turn. Polyamory is a lifestyle choice that requires communication and emotional patience and honesty, a point illustrated in MMF by displaying the outcome of their absence. At no point did any of the trio attempt to discuss with the others what it was that they were doing and how they ought to go about doing it. Not once was the word "polyamory" mentioned, nor was there any sign at any time that they'd noticed that there exists a polyamorous community or that polyamorous people have issues that might be of concern to them. It was not obvious whether they'd ever discussed whether they would opt for sexual exclusivity among the three of them and what their various opinions on the matter had been if they had, but we see both Dean and Michael becoming upset when two of the members of the trio have sex in the absence of the third and again when one of the three has sex with an outside person.
We observe them flying blindly in the fog, trying to relate to each other without definitions. When contemplating introducing Dean to her family, Jane flounders. "I want them to meet my.. my.. my YOU." The breakup is precipitated when Dean's strong feelings for Michael lead him to conclude, apparently without much reflection on his options, that the strength of those feelings necessitates breaking up the trio so the two of them can pursue a relationship as a couple instead. It's precisely the kind of relationship trainwreck one would expect in the absence of people sitting down to talk about whether a polyamorous arrangement is what they want for the rest of their lives, or is something that is OK for now until the Real Thing (a monogamous committed relationship) becomes available, or if in fact they hold any kind of idealized sought-after relationship arrangement or are just taking things as they come and seeing what happens.
All three of the participants are immature and insecure; they badger each other, deliberately inflicting guilt or trying to evoke a sense of obligation as they pry at each other for reassurances that they then cannot believe; they constantly deflect sentiments and thoughts that they are too scared of to be willing to hear. They repeatedly beat each other over the head with imputations of broken promises and bad faith when the promises mostly seem to have been assumed rather than discussed, and where the notion of assuming good intentions appears never to occur to anyone. Each of them showcases their own fears and pains as if proof that one or more of the others had deliberately inflicted them.
Sadly, these are entirely believable scenes, if not pleasant ones to observe. These communication problems are not unique to polyamory and are in evidence on the sidewalks of our nightlife streets to any evening pedestrian out for a city stroll. It's just so much more important to overcome them if one is going to pursue successful polyamorous relationships.
MMF is a well-wrought drama rendered by the three actors in evocatively unsettling tones and phrases and punctuated with awkward pauses. The material is solidly and believably human, the characters three-dimensionally real. But, as my partner Anais remarked, "I'd hate for people to see this and think that this is what polyamory is like!" (I replied, "Yes, that would be as bad as seeing Romeo and Juliet and thinking, 'Oh, so that's what dating is like!' ") Perhaps David Kimple should bring MMF to polyamory conferences to illustrate the pitfalls of poor communication strategies.
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August 22, 2014
Dean: Mike Mizwicki
Jane: Courtney Alana Ward
Michael: Andrew Rincón
I attended this performance with my partner Anais_pf; what had brought it to our attention was a mention on a polyamory-related website, describing it as a new play about the breakup of a polyamorous relationship. Or, to quote directly from the blurb, "When Dean, Jane and Michael's polyamorous relationship comes to an end, the trio is forced to deal with the consequences of love in a nontraditional relationship. MMF explores the realities of love, need, want and people who don't know the difference."
I am polyamorous myself (I have two other partners in addition to Anais) and all of my partners either currently have or in the past have had other partners, whom I've known and hung out with, as well as meeting many if not all of their partners. Because issues and problems that affect polyamorous relationships are sometimes unique to polyamory, and even those that are not often take on additional complexities in a polyamorous situation, we often attend presentations and read books and listen to podcasts about how to deal with such things as polyamorous people, so I was anticipating that MMF would explore the additional complexities and special circumstances involved in the breakup of polyamorous relationships.
The play wasn't at all what I expected. Of course, in the theatre, getting something other than what you were expecting isn't necessarily a bad thing.
SYNOPSIS: Dean, Jane, and Michael are mutually romantically and sexually involved as a triad. This is a situation that emerges from, first, Dean and Michael meeting cute and Michael staying at Dean's, and then, before they've really jelled or decided they wanted to be each other's boyfriend, Jane saying hello and becoming involved with both of them and moving in as well. (Hence, none of the three of them sought out a polyamorous situation on purpose.) The three of them apparently thrive for awhile as a happy triangle until, at some point, they don't. We're brought into the story by Dean's reminiscences at some point after the breakup, as he thinks back on how it all happened: how they became involved and how the breakup transpired. Within the first 4 minutes of the lights going up, Dean states that he's missing someone he is "NOT SUPPOSED TO miss", which both introduces the reminiscences and sets the emotional tone of the threesome's knotted tangle of unspoken rules and undefined obligations.
Playwright David Kimple chose to skip between timeframes, bouncing between the Dean of the current moment (as he ponders his memories and listlessly interacts with Jane) and the earlier period that he's recalling for us. This trope enables him to reveal the structure of the breakup chronology in a sequence more interesting and suspenseful than a chronologically linear telling might be capable of, but often at the expense of clarity. At several points, individual dialogs and interactions were presented that left me confused about the order in which things had happened: a discussion between Jane and Dean about Jane's family coming to meet him seemed to occur before Dean and Michael met, creating the initial impression that Jane and Dean had been together first. The overall picture was filled in for us in disjointed segments and only became clear as it became more complete towards the end.
Mike Mizwicki, Courtney Alana Ward and Andrew Rincón gave a compellingly stark and believable portrayal of anguished individuals in interaction. Their respective characters, Dean Jane and Michael, exuded a most infectious frustration that quickly made me want to backhand each of them in turn. Polyamory is a lifestyle choice that requires communication and emotional patience and honesty, a point illustrated in MMF by displaying the outcome of their absence. At no point did any of the trio attempt to discuss with the others what it was that they were doing and how they ought to go about doing it. Not once was the word "polyamory" mentioned, nor was there any sign at any time that they'd noticed that there exists a polyamorous community or that polyamorous people have issues that might be of concern to them. It was not obvious whether they'd ever discussed whether they would opt for sexual exclusivity among the three of them and what their various opinions on the matter had been if they had, but we see both Dean and Michael becoming upset when two of the members of the trio have sex in the absence of the third and again when one of the three has sex with an outside person.
We observe them flying blindly in the fog, trying to relate to each other without definitions. When contemplating introducing Dean to her family, Jane flounders. "I want them to meet my.. my.. my YOU." The breakup is precipitated when Dean's strong feelings for Michael lead him to conclude, apparently without much reflection on his options, that the strength of those feelings necessitates breaking up the trio so the two of them can pursue a relationship as a couple instead. It's precisely the kind of relationship trainwreck one would expect in the absence of people sitting down to talk about whether a polyamorous arrangement is what they want for the rest of their lives, or is something that is OK for now until the Real Thing (a monogamous committed relationship) becomes available, or if in fact they hold any kind of idealized sought-after relationship arrangement or are just taking things as they come and seeing what happens.
All three of the participants are immature and insecure; they badger each other, deliberately inflicting guilt or trying to evoke a sense of obligation as they pry at each other for reassurances that they then cannot believe; they constantly deflect sentiments and thoughts that they are too scared of to be willing to hear. They repeatedly beat each other over the head with imputations of broken promises and bad faith when the promises mostly seem to have been assumed rather than discussed, and where the notion of assuming good intentions appears never to occur to anyone. Each of them showcases their own fears and pains as if proof that one or more of the others had deliberately inflicted them.
Sadly, these are entirely believable scenes, if not pleasant ones to observe. These communication problems are not unique to polyamory and are in evidence on the sidewalks of our nightlife streets to any evening pedestrian out for a city stroll. It's just so much more important to overcome them if one is going to pursue successful polyamorous relationships.
MMF is a well-wrought drama rendered by the three actors in evocatively unsettling tones and phrases and punctuated with awkward pauses. The material is solidly and believably human, the characters three-dimensionally real. But, as my partner Anais remarked, "I'd hate for people to see this and think that this is what polyamory is like!" (I replied, "Yes, that would be as bad as seeing Romeo and Juliet and thinking, 'Oh, so that's what dating is like!' ") Perhaps David Kimple should bring MMF to polyamory conferences to illustrate the pitfalls of poor communication strategies.
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