My Crazy, My Love at Sublime Theater

My Crazy My Love, the new play by local playwright John Crutchfield receiving its world premiere at The Sublime Theater, is assigned the subtitle “A Domestic Phantasmagoria with Song and Dance.”  

Fantastic, indeed. My Crazy My Love is less akin to a traditional (or even nontraditional) musical and more like the bewildering musical finale of the erstwhile Amazon series Transparent.

In both cases, a standard family drama is turned upside down with singing and dancing performed by people who are clearly not singers and dancers. The result is a sort of vaudeville, DIY performance style that isn’t entirely unpleasant. What My Crazy lacks in polish it makes up for with sheer joyful gumption. Director (and actor, Producing Artistic Director, and Sublime co-founder) Steven Samuels is not lacking in theatrical chutzpah, and it shows.

The unspoken question that runs through My Crazy My Love is: can this play succeed on the strength of its own earnest momentum? The answer is: sometimes. 

With a running time of over two hours, including two intermissions, Crutchfield’s script is too long and meandering. There is a story here — a quasi-estranged family gathers together as their wheelchair-bound father nears death — but nothing really happens until the last third or so of the play.

Instead, the show is structured using brief vignettes that are vehicles for character exposition. Eldest daughter Karen (Lydia Congdon) is a cynical New Yorker who drinks cough syrup and lounges on bean bag chairs; middle daughter Kristin (Olivia Stuller) is a shallow yoga instructor pretending she is deep; youngest daughter Kathryn (Emmaleigh Moriniti) is a Dostoyevsky-obsessed high school senior with a penchant for black lipstick and fishnets.

Olivia Stuller in My Crazy My Love.

All three sisters (yes, there are Chekhov references made, along with Sartre and a host of other literary luminaries) are fun characters to watch, even if they are broadly written. The snappy vignettes showcasing the grandstanding and dysfunction among the family members is enjoyable for the first half-hour or so, but it is a pattern that gets old somewhere between the first and second intermission.

Make no mistake — there is a treasure trove of gems in this glorious mess of a show. Chief among them is Samuels, playing patriarch Archie Finkelstein, who is a powerhouse, utterly engrossing onstage. His musical number, “Beyond the River Sambatyon,” is easily the best of the show. Samuels makes bold, clear choices that match the tone of the show, which is something akin to a burning clown car on the side of the freeway.

Another memorable highlight is Kathy O’Connor playing Julia Finckelstein, the languid, histrionic mother who’s a sort of Blanche DuBois desperate housewife. Her musical number, “Hot, Oh Yes,” complete with Motown style back-up singing, is funny and charming.

But the greatest part of My Crazy My Love is the penultimate scene, a high-octane phantasmagoria involving wholesale destruction of the set, an incubus in a Mötley Crüe T-shirt (played by Art Moore), and the explanation for the mysterious (and ugly) painter's’ tarp that carpets most of the set, seemingly inexplicably, for the whole run of the show. 

That great climactic scene sums up what’s best about My Crazy My Love — a concoction of absurd humor, sharp wit with a dark edge, yet also containing real heartfelt sweetness and even a touch of wisdom. Too bad it takes so long to get there. If some of the fat was trimmed from this production and it was a more distilled version of the Incubus scene, this show would be a real force of nature.

For those seeking a tight, polished play, My Crazy My Love is probably not the best choice. But for those, like myself, who enjoy a messy, Fringe-y theatrical joyride now and again, this is definitely a show worth checking out. At the very least, it will make you feel better about your own family reunion.

My Crazy My Love runs through November 23 at The Sublime Theater, at Asheville’s BeBe Theatre. For tickets and details, visit Sublime’s Facebook page.

(Photos courtesy of The Sublime Theater & Press)

Lydia Congdon in My Crazy My Love.