"Boy Gets Girl," But Not Without Cliches

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"Boy Gets Girl" - November 13, 2005

By Alison Prelusky
Staff Writer


When a play is entitled "Boy Gets Girl," and its promotional posters feature a Caucasian bride and groom wedding cake topper, it’s very easy for an audience member to walk into the theatre with expectations of a run-of-the-mill romantic comedy. Everyone knows the usual romantic plot: some male character falls in love with some female character, wackiness ensues, there’s some kind of conflict, but somehow they end up living happily ever after. It’s only natural to expect a play with this title to follow this formula. However, in the case of Rebecca Gilman’s "Boy Gets Girl," the action onstage revolves around a woman who falls prey to a stalker. Not a trace of a cliché romantic plot is to be found; unfortunately, a cliché stalker plot ends up taking its place.


The action opens up with the two main characters, Theresa and Tony (played with finesse by Sophie Vanier and Eric C. Webb) on a blind date at a bar. The dialogue here is very effective in conveying the awkwardness of a first meeting with a potentially new romantic partner, and Ms. Gilman does a great job at making the audience wonder where this relationship is going. Both characters keep referring to someone named Linda, the woman who had set them up in the first place; unbeknownst to the audience, Linda will never be seen onstage for the entire play, which is a bit of a disappointment and later on seems like a lost opportunity for some drama. As the play progresses, Theresa is revealed to be a successful career woman who works as a reporter for a magazine called The World, which the program notes reveal is most likely a stage version of The New Yorker. The two later go on another date, and Theresa ends up telling Tony that she is too busy for a relationship, which the audience sees as a thinly-veiled attempt to let him down gently. As the play progresses, Tony gets more and more insistent, constantly calling her and showing up at her workplace (the latter of which happens in scene four, and marks the last time we actually see Tony onstage). Theresa, of course, responds to this by getting more and more aggressive in telling him off. The typical stalker plot overtakes the play, and even with a number of smaller side plots, the action does not have much of anywhere to go. One such side plot involves Theresa’s associate, Mercer (Brian Avery), expressing an interest in writing an article about gender roles and how they come into play when someone desires a pursuit of a relationship.


Obviously this adds a very interesting dimension to the main plot onstage, and would serve to help put the action of the main plot into a bigger perspective (perhaps even poking fun at the cliché romantic comedy plot that the audience was probably expecting). But Theresa takes offense to her stalker situation being possibly turned into news article, saying that it’s trivializing her personal anguish. The exploration of gender roles is limited to one small dialogue in Act II, scene 2, between Mercer and his boss Howard (Robert Colpitts), and after Theresa’s expression of rage at the prospect of the article being written, it’s not really addressed again. Another small hint at gender roles is explored when Theresa interviews an adult filmmaker named Les Kennkat (Jonah Rosenberg). Despite the writer’s obviously strong effort, the play’s multiple dialogues between Theresa and Les are somewhat bland, and it was easy to sense the audience members getting antsy whenever the two had a scene together. The play ends with Theresa essentially accepting defeat, and after a completely random non-sequitur about her brother, she introduces herself to the other onstage characters by her new name, chosen in order to hide herself from her stalker. The ending really gave the impression that Ms. Gilman had no idea as to where this plot was going, and essentially just got tired of writing.


As lackluster as the plot may have been, the performances certainly left nothing to be desired. Ms. Vanier did an excellent job at making her character one with which the audience could easily identify, and although the part was relatively small, credit goes to Mr. Webb for making Tony seem like a typical “nice guy” before he reveals his true intentions. Also, the part of Howard was wonderfully portrayed by Mr. Colpitts, who really seemed to be the emotional “rock” in Theresa’s life. This particular play was disappointing, but these actors will no doubt find a more suitable showcase for their talents at a later point in their promising careers.