Ugly Marriages

I saw this play Fifty Words last night. It's an ugly play about Jan and Adam's ugly marriage and their ugly resentments and ugly infidelities and their poor 8-year old son named Greg who's already fucked up because of it all. It must be an exhausting thing to perform, and the performances--there's only the battling couple on the stage the whole time--are nothing I'll criticize. But . . . isn't this subject kind of tiresome? There must be some fantasy in the playwright's wanting to write it all down. Justifying a 10-year-long infidelity? Entitling one's self to be a big bitch? The guy just trying to keep himself sprightly in an overburdened world, and the gal exhausted from bearing the bulk of that burden? Do people want to see these types of plays? More importantly: do people see themselves in such plays? In the end it's always about forgiveness, which means compromise for one of them, and the devices are the dark truths that come to light (ie, wife never wanted kids--and, BTW, are there instances of female playwrights putting such admittances in actresses mouths?--and husband's shaky job prospects).

In any case, here's another opportunity for me to be happy to be gay. Gays still have the opportunity to keep our relationships from getting scarred by such historical burdens, which is to say that yes, this kind of play is the residue of a long, pretty depressing cultural history that tricks people into thinking they know what they want and which---though I'll say it happened under much sunnier circumstances--ultimately begot me, and that while gay marriage might be legal soon, there is still time to question what it all is for, and redefine those social expectations that threaten us to write ugly plays about ourselves.