9.4.14

"white marriage" calls for a divorce (at TFPO)

A review of "White Marriage" on stage at the Odyssey Theatre.


The French call it a mariage blanc, which translates to “white marriage,” although “blank marriage” would be equally appropriate. It’s an expression that refers to unconsummated nuptials. As the title of a play by noted Polish playwright and poet Tadeusz Różewicz, however, it takes on the unintended meaning of a play with unconsummated drama.


Ostensibly the story of a naïve girl, Bianca, growing into womanhood while confronted by her impending marriage to an equally naïve boy named Benjamin, Różewicz’s fantasia concerns sex. At the cusp of puberty, young Bianca is not so much innocent, but beholden to a slanted, idiosyncratic perspective of sex that Sigmund Freud, whose name should have been spelled with an “a” instead of an “e,” would have approved. Suspicion and terror – both influenced by an excess of imagination that is inflamed through a volatile relationship with her precocious best friend Pauline. 

It might be easy to imagine a structured narrative from these preceding sentences, a slender path that navigates the play’s theatrical woods to deliver an insightful account of blossoming womanhood (in all the meanings implied by the botanical metaphor). Yet ... READ THE REST AT THE FRONT PAGE ONLINE


White Marriage. Written by Tadeusz Różewicz. Directed by Ron Sossi. On stage at the Odyssey Theatre until May 25, 2014. For information and tickets, call (310) 477-2055 ext. 2 or visit www.OdysseyTheatre.com.

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