‘Beyond Therapy’ provides lots of laughs

Both the jokes and Ele Woods’s ’11 oppressively colorful tunic in “Beyond Therapy” appear equally anachronistic for today’s world, and yet both still elicit the most uproarious of laughs.

Though the gags might have been a bit worn-out, the sense that the homophobic and “crazy people” jokes were, in fact, once original comes through. It’s not often that works from the 1980s seem like “period pieces,” but the Christopher Durang play shown in the Hepburn Zoo over the weekend of April 8-10 manages to hearken back to that era of Madonna cone-bras and “The Breakfast Club,” and not-too-subtly remind us of how long it’s been.

Through seemingly dated, the ’80s setting of “Beyond Therapy” remains central to the comedy. Durang, often having encountered suggestions to update the play, has steadfastedly refused. After all, the time period does not interfere with the looking-for-love-while-lonely relationship farce’s main purpose — it wants nothing more than to make you laugh. There is no great moral, tragic twist or dramatic ending.

Overtones of the hackneyed theme “we’re all crazy!” instigate the humor. And while overused, the ridiculous situations nevertheless are carried forth by a cast ridiculously pleasing enough to overcome the tired script.

Woods, playing a word-fumbling, narcissistic, kindergarten teacher-like therapist, commands the stage, and it is not only because of the overwhelming brightness of her outfits. She trips over her words with purposeful, delightful ease, and her disorderly use of the English language combining with her sickly sweet smiles could not play to any soundtrack but that of spectators’ boisterous laughter. Other cast members portray their characters just fine, but Woods surpasses “just fine.”

Woods plays Mrs. Wallace, a therapist who ironically needs therapy herself. In this comedy of errors, Mrs. Wallace “helps” Bruce (Reilly Steel ’11) overcome his relationship problems, while also partly engendering them. (It turns out that her encouragement of Bruce placing personals ads in the paper for women annoys his gay lover, Bob (Sam Koplinka-Loehr ’13). Who’d’ve thought?) When Bruce meets Prudence (April Dodd ’13), they irritate each other until they like each other enough to start dating. Prudence’s masculinity-challenged therapist, Dr. Stuart Framingham (Dennis Wynn ’13) and a cute waiter (Grady Trela ’13) complete the love hexagon.

As Bruce and Prudence try to make their relationship work, it becomes abundantly clear that the affair is a travesty in the making. Their idiosyncratic therapists’ interfering fingers make the tightrope of modern love all the more daunting. Bruce only wants to marry Prudence and live in a house in Connecticut with an apartment over the garage for Bob, but his simple wish is hampered by, among many other problems, Dr. Framingham’s constant (and illegal) attentions towards Prudence.

In portraying the back-and-forth between Framingham and Prudence, Wynn and Dodd are perfectly matched — that is, their chemistry is nonexistent. The undercurrent of disgust threaded through her rebuffs only encourages his slimy notice, and Wynn’s mastery of what men think of as “smooth” makes their scenes even better. Similarly, the character of Bob makes the comedy all the greater, with even Koplinka-Loehr’s gait communicating his amusing annoyance at his boyfriend’s new girlfriend.

“Beyond Therapy” turns out, after all, to be good medicine. Submitting to the absurdity of the comedy, to Woods’ ribald yells of “cocksucker,” to Steel’s repetitive speech patterns about his “feelings” and to Wynn’s amusing Napoleon complex, means releasing those veins bulging from the accumulation of college stress and giving into the ease-inducing hilarity.

Some students might find the new contortions of their face muscles a tad overbearing and unfamiliar, so unused to laughter as the end of the semester’s workload begins to amass upon them, but that just shows how utterly necessary its pure silliness is.

“Beyond Therapy” might be a relic from the ’80s, but in its nature as a farce, it accomplishes its aim better than a good tickling ever would. Utterly undemanding, the comedy forces its audience into a release through laughter, ironically manifesting a therapeutic role even as it shows just how bad some therapy can be.