‘Mr. Marmalade’ isn’t kid stuff

Tom Titus

South Coast Repertory’s latest world premiere -- “Mr. Marmalade” by

its youngest produced playwright, Noah Haidle, 25 -- may revolve

around the adventures of a 4-year-old girl, but it would be

inadvisable to take any youngster under the age of 16 to see it. Kid

stuff, it ain’t.

Haidle’s fertile imagination has produced a world in which a

little girl has an imaginary playmate, but underneath this bogus

character’s polished Dr. Phil exterior he’s got all the charm and

consideration of Charles Manson on a really bad day.

Reality and fantasy collide and intertwine with throat-catching

regularity in this bizarre day in the life of little Lucy, who

conjures up the title character as a brusque, briefcase-carrying

businessman with little time for his clever creator. Since Lucy lives

with her divorced mother, one must assume she drew on her departed

father as a role model for her imaginary companion.

If so, Dad must really have been hell on wheels. Haidle’s Mr.

Marmalade has more character shifts than Jennifer Garner on “Alias”

-- in one scene, he’s the epitome of rectitude; in the next, he’s a

foul-mouthed SOB who carries porno books, sex toys and a blow-up doll

in his briefcase.

Lucy also has another friend, this one real. Five-year-old Larry

drops by to play “doctor” and gets a thorough examination in a scene

that will elicit more than a few gasps from the audience. There’s a

message here, involving learning to separate reality from fantasy,

but it’s nearly lost in all the black comedy Haidle takes a perverse

delight in churning out.

Eliza Pryor Nagel excels as the precocious Lucy. A grown actress

with a union card, Nagel succeeds in luring her audience into this

edgy pretense and expressing a plethora of conflicting emotions over

the course of this roller-coaster saga. If her “playing doctor” scene

doesn’t shock the audience, the second-act bit involving her “baby”

certainly will. Playgoers must remember that this is all a fantasy

created by a child’s mind.

The title role of the half-hero, half-heel mythical man is

performed with spirit and relish by Glen Fleshler, whose dominating

stage presence is often reassuring but more often frightening. And

the method by which Lucy chooses to remove him from her life is

equally unsettling.

Guilford Adams, also an adult, is quite credible as the 5-year-old

playmate who joins into the spirit of the adventure with caution at

first, then overly solicitous as he prepares a “banquet” of chips,

candy and other junk food he’s managed to swipe from the neighborhood

market.

Heidi Dippold takes on three characters, all well defined. She’s

quite believable as Lucy’s single mother who has overnight

boyfriends, teenage raunchy as the girl’s baby-sitter and justly

goofy in the cameo of a sunflower (yes, a sunflower, who comes to

dinner accompanied by a cactus in the play’s most egregious example

of imagination run amok).

Another figment of Lucy’s imagination, this one quite engaging, is

Bradley, Mr. Marmalade’s personal assistant. Marc Victor gives this

character a charm and sophistication beyond Lucy’s years. Larry Bates

completes the cast in roles as the sitter’s boyfriend and the

aforementioned cactus.

Ethan McSweeney directs this junior Twilight Zone of a play with

all the proper imagination and flourish it requires. Michael Roth’s

original music provides a suitable backdrop, along with Rachel

Hauck’s large living room setting and Angela Balogh Calin’s colorful

costumes.

“Mr. Marmalade” marks its author, who’s still pursuing his muse at

Julliard, as a name to watch in the future. Particularly since he

counts among his mentors veteran playwright Christopher Durang, who’s

raised the bar for bizarre theater over the past few decades.

* TOM TITUS reviews local theater for the Daily Pilot. His reviews

appear Fridays.