Unsettling play offers catharsis and promise

The laughter, at first, was fitful and uncertain, the reaction of an opening-weekend audience wondering: What in the world have I gotten myself into this time?

No doubt that question will hang in the air at every performance of “Mr. Marmalade” at South Coast Repertory. But once an audience gives itself permission to chortle at the strange yet queasily familiar events taking place onstage, it enters into a sort of group therapy, which can prove cathartic.

A play that taps into everyday fears, “Mr. Marmalade” resembles the slyly amusing, envelope-pushing work of such playwrights as David Lindsay-Abaire, Nicky Silver and Richard Greenberg, whose work also has been nurtured by the Costa Mesa theater. But playwright Noah Haidle is a 25-year-old graduate student at Juilliard and, with this world premiere, he becomes the youngest playwright ever accorded such treatment at South Coast Repertory.

Presented on the smaller Julianne Argyros Stage, his play focuses on a 4-year-old girl with a remarkably well-developed imagination. That little Lucy is portrayed by a twentysomething actress in a pink top, purple tights and fluffy white tutu is merely the first in what will become a long list of artfully off-kilter details.

First seen playing with Barbie and Ken dolls, Lucy (Eliza Pryor Nagel) is the very picture of innocence. But some surprisingly adult concerns have infiltrated her world of tea parties and pinkie swears, a realization that arrives in the person of Mr. Marmalade (Glenn Fleshler), a tall, burly man in a crisp black suit, carrying a briefcase. He is Lucy’s imaginary friend.

Lucy’s interaction with Mr. Marmalade quickly falls into the patterns of distracted husband and neglected wife, the reasons for which become apparent as Haidle hands out clues about Lucy’s life in a New Jersey household headed by a single mom (Heidi Dippold) who’s always rushing off to a date or to work. On the evening in question, Lucy is left in the care of an adolescent baby sitter (Dippold again) who has invited her boyfriend (Larry Bates) to the house. He is saddled with his 5-year-old stepbrother, Larry (Guilford Adams, another adult actor), whom he brings along.

After the baby sitter and boyfriend head to another room to fool around, Lucy initiates a game of doctor, and soon she and Larry are engaged in much the same unheedingly sexual activity. It’s about here that those titters from the audience become particularly choked and nervous. The mood changes yet again as Mr. Marmalade turns increasingly sinister, displaying propensities for violence (witnessed, at first, in the injuries sustained by his appointment minder and all-around personal assistant, played by Marc Vietor) and substance abuse.

All of this might be a bit too horrifying if Haidle, director Ethan McSweeny and the designers weren’t continually reminding viewers that what’s unfolding on stage is merely make-believe. The pattern and color of the wallpaper decorating Rachel Hauck’s set are too hallucinatory to be real, and in especially surreal moments, Scott Zielinski’s lights project giant shadows onto the back wall. Along with the conceit of having adult actors portray kids, such elements help to distance theatergoers from their emotions just enough so that they can process the story analytically.

Thus, therapy can occur. As Lucy plays house with Larry or Mr. Marmalade, the pretend domestic routines are encoded with the indignities of everyday living, from such personal concerns as a partner’s emotional unavailability to such larger worries as healthcare, job security, suicide, violence and the generally unhappy state of planet Earth.

This is not really a play about kids, then; it’s about adults: lonely, confused, entirely ordinary grown-ups whose actions shape the world and, specifically, its children.

“Mr. Marmalade” may not be for everyone (at the reviewed performance, a couple near the front of the auditorium made a pointed exit in the middle of a scene). But Haidle has the courage of his convictions, which he has demonstrated in a mature and accomplished play. Here is yet another example of South Coast Repertory identifying and nurturing a writer of extraordinary promise.

*

‘Mr. Marmalade’

Where: Julianne Argyros Stage, South Coast Repertory, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa

When: Tuesdays to Fridays, 7:45 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, 2 and 7:45 p.m.

Ends: May 16

Price: $27 to $55

Contact: (714) 708-5555 or www.scr.org

Running Time: 1 hour, 45 minutes

Eliza Pryor Nagel...Lucy

Glenn Fleshler...Mr. Marmalade

Heidi Dippold...Emily/

Sookie/Sunflower

Larry Bates...George/

a Man/Cactus

Guilford Adams...Larry

Marc Vietor...Bradley

Written by Noah Haidle. Director Ethan McSweeny. Sets Rachel Hauck. Costumes Angela Balogh Calin. Lights Scott Zielinski. Original music and sound Michael Roth. Production stage manager Jamie A. Tucker.