Review: In Matthew Gasda’s Soonest Mended, an Open Marriage Falls Apart

Proof that everything old is new again: It’s now fashionable to fornicate with someone who is not your spouse. While the expectation of monogamy has never been strictly enforced for husbands (especially ones with money), in the name of equity, the franchise of tolerable infidelity has recently expanded to include wives, provided they cat around ethically. The author and critic of the sexual revolution, Louise Perry, has referred to this as the “homosexualization of heterosexuality,” the adoption of longstanding gay male sexual mores by the straight majority. And this would constitute an intolerable cultural appropriation if the poor dears were any good at it.

But they’re not, as Matthew Gasda makes abundantly clear in his latest drama, Soonest Mended, which recently previewed at ARTXNYC before moving to Gasda’s regular home at the Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research.

It’s the dreary little tale of Alexa (Hayley Phelan) and Jonah (Johnathan Fernandez), two Brooklyn-based novelists who have been together for 15 years. Both pushing 40, they have decided to open their marriage to new sexual partners. For Jonah, that’s a nurse named Cora (Natasha Walfall), while Alexa opts for a handsomely mustachioed masseuse named Kieran (Eric Olsson, competently executing the job sans happy ending). These sexual trysts might as well be job interviews for all the nervous dread radiating off the stage. So why are they even doing it?

Gasda seems to imply that nonmonogamy, like the latest iPhone, is an accessory meant to complete the image of a certain lifestyle. It’s rampant consumption dressed up as Bohemian subversion, and in this case, a shiny new project to distract from the glaring reality of a dead marriage. All of that would be hugely compelling and provocative if anything about this play were the slightest bit believable.

That starts with the marriage in question. The novelist Anthony Burgess once referred to marriage as a “kind of civilization” with its own culture. But I doubt even the most skilled archeologist could uncover evidence of once-held affection or even affinity in the relationship between Alexa and Jonah—no pet names, no inside jokes, nothing. It made me wonder what they saw in each other in the first place. Gasda (best known for the play Dimes Square, about the post-woke downtown cultural scene) declines to tell us, and the actors do nothing to paper over his omission.

Phelan and Fernandez have the least chemistry of any two actors I’ve encountered in 15 years of reviewing theater, with a relationship that is more akin to coworkers who have learned to tolerate each other’s proximity. We know it’s all over when he half-heartedly attempts to mime a sexual act, and she quickly escapes the position like an NCAA wrestler. This could be excused as physical storytelling meant to betray the lies coming out of the two writers’ mouths, but it doesn’t explain why neither actor becomes less awkward in scenes without their respective spouses. Fernandez possesses all the charisma of a two-by-four—the better to whack the audience with one’s dramatic thesis.

I wondered if Gasda, who also directs, coached the actors to be so wooden to show us two people whose nonverbal communication skills have atrophied due to excessive exposure to screens and the written word. This may be a highly realistic portrayal of Brooklyn’s creative class, but it’s awfully boring to watch, made even duller by the lack of peaks, valleys, and discernible punctuation in the dramatic action. It was clear the night I attended that if Gasda hadn’t have yelled “intermission” and “that’s the play” at the end of each act, the audience wouldn’t have known.

The writer-director compensates by underscoring his climactic scene with Turandot, perhaps hoping that Puccini will do his work for him. But even as Pavarotti wails, we can unfortunately still hear the monotonously spoken words:

“Jonah: I can feel the lights going off inside the factory. I can see the workers going home.

  Alexa: What does the factory produce?

  Jonah: Marriage.”

Two acclaimed novelists and that’s the best they can do?

The most authentically human performance comes from Walfall, who succinctly expresses the exhaustion we all feel when she tells Jonah directly, “I don’t want to be with you be with you; I’m being sincere when I say I just am here for sex… and like maybe also the deep sleep you can only have after good sex.” With her ever-souring face she conveys what should be obvious: She’s not interested in providing pro bono therapy, even for a man in possession of what we are told is an extraordinarily large bono.

Everything takes place on Jennifer May Reiland’s living room set, which simulates the shared habitat of two writers, a space decorated with found furniture and cheap plastic supplements. A vinyl player occupies a place of prominence, with a forest of potted plants (another appropriation from the gays) enveloping the stage.

It’s too bad no designer is credited in the program, because the costumes are the most thoughtful and instructive element of the whole production. I particularly appreciated Jonah’s black skinny jeans, the armor of an elder Millennial not quite prepared to let go of something that is no longer working for him. They defiantly shout to the world, “You’ll have to cut these off my cold dead legs.”

But the characters in Soonest Mended are never as articulate as the garments, making this a frustratingly shapeless watch. I admire Gasda’s effort to mine beneath the fashionable cliches that govern the lives of the urban elite, but the shaft must be structurally sound before anyone will be willing to go down there with him.