Anna and Chris present Marie and Bruce

"'Marie and Bruce' lures audience into abusive marriage relationship," Daily Tar Heel, 12/6/91

By MONDY LAMB
Omnibus Editor

"Marie and Bruce," a story about all the things a woman caught in an abusive marriage wants to tell her husband, is a dark, introspective look at the cycles of an abusive relationship. "The play is striking and offensive for the purpose of making people sit up and think," said Chris Quails, who plays Bruce in the production by The Campus Theatre. "Marie and Bruce," the second production to emerge from the recently formed group, portrays the reality of an abusive relationship as seen through a woman's imagination.

It opens with a couple in bed, the sum of the reality in which Marie and Bruce live. As Marie draws the audience into her imagination, she explains her treatment at Bruce's hands and her plans to leave him. In her imagination, she also speaks to him as she's never spoken to him before, telling him her true thoughts. In her imagination, she doesn't have to be the wife who takes abuse silently. Although the play is set in Marie's imagination, this actually makes her experiences more real. Rather than experiencing an objective, idealized point of view, members of the audience come to know Marie's thoughts as she addresses them directly, telling them about Bruce's behavior and attempting to bring them to her way of understanding her husband.

"She tries to get the audience on her side," said Anna Weinstein, who plays Marie. "At one point she says to the audience, 'He is such an asshole. Can't you see this?'" Because the play ends right back where it began, "Marie and Bruce" leaves the audience, rather than the characters, searching for a resolution. Perhaps that is the message: As a representation of abusive relationships, the play leaves no solution for the couple because the only solution available is one that Marie, representative of most people, won't take. "A lot of time people get trapped in a relationship and say they are going to break through and leave, but they come right back," Quails said. Weinstein said, "Marie is a weak person who wants very much to be strong."

Quails said the biggest challenge was keeping the humor in this very dark comedy. "It's a dark look at social interaction and deep personal relationships," he said. Much of the action takes place at an imaginary party in which Marie's thoughts serve as the conversations of the party guests.

The rest of the cast Coke Whitworth, Sarah E. Ruccio, Sarabeth Fields, Duncan Boothby, Tom Quinn and Patrick Emerson all play dual roles as party guests. Additionally, John Svara and John Bell will provide special music, and Clint Curtis will perform originally choreographed dance. As well as acting in the lead roles, Quails directs, and Weinstein assists.

"Marie and Bruce" will he presented at 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday in Great Hall of the Union.