Luna Theatre's "Orange Flower Water'

Since California's Family Law Act of 1969 created the conditions for no-fault dissolutions of marriage, divorce has become one of the most common features of adult American life. The first wedding I attended ended six months after the ceremony; the engagement lasted longer. This was in 1982, and my mother— and perhaps many others— (still) considered her friend's divorce a shameful event. Today pop psychologists regard a "first divorce" as a rite of passage like middle age, and even encourage holding "marriage wakes" to celebrate the culmination of the legal proceedings.

Likewise, few Americans seem to feel revulsion at the consequences of divorce. Indeed, when I first read Craig Wright's Orange Flower Water, a cautionary tale about the unhappy couples casting off current responsibilities in a quest for carefree happiness—I wondered, "Who would produce this?" I couldn't believe that the same Wright who penned Luna's 2008 spectacular hit Grace also wrote something that read like a watered-down version of the destructive effects of adultery in Patrick Marber's much better play, Closer.

But what a world of difference a production can make. Or rather, what a world of emotional torture that Luna Theatre director Greg Campbell and four superb performances have wrought.

The world beyond the bedroom

Like Closer, Wright's play shows four characters— in this case, two married couples living in small town Minnesota: the choral teacher Cathy (Amanda Grove) and her pharmacist husband David (Damon Bonetti) and housewife Beth (Janice Rowland) and her video-store owner husband Brad (Chris Fluck). Cathy opens the play by reciting a lengthy "honey-do" list of chores, clearly displaying the doldrums of married life but ending on a note of sincere joy at her marriage when she writes, "I love you and feel proud to be your wife."

Meanwhile, Beth lies in a bed with David, dreaming that "the world out there has disappeared" as she struggles to consummate their romantic friendship. After three years of making out in bathrooms at parties, she's slowly realizing that "We're married to the wrong people." When she asks, "Is real love possible?" David replies, "When I'm with you I feel alive." But in either case, he admits, he's "totally out of touch with reality."

The meaning's a little too obvious here, but recognizable nonetheless: David hates what a family has done to his life and wants to feel young again. For Wright, at least, divorce is in large part the product of a generation of kidults. (The orange flower water of the title is a mythical substance that represents youth, springtime and happiness.)

Extra layers of revulsion

But what seems banal, Luna's production transforms into emotional torture, as Wright's stage directions force the actors to watch from seats on the side of the stage like a sadist cuckold's fantasy. Hearing her husband call their marriage a mistake, Grove's face contorts painfully, and Fluck's expression crumbles when his wife tells another man, "Every night I lay in bed and think of you." While Beth and David's feelings strike as obvious, the sheer number of U.S. divorces necessitates this stereotype, adding extra layers of revulsion by showing that what feels special is made vulgar by being so common.

The inevitable breakup occurs, and "actual kids have to get driven away by actual friends, and actual people have to sit there and actually live." But the confrontations push the limits of what's emotionally tolerable to watch on stage. Fluck's excellent performance rages through heights of anger, shouting a stream "cunts" at his wife before plunging into a depth of vulnerability in the next scene.

Later, Campbell's staging (and Michael Cosenza's choreography) blended the voyeuristic with the repulsive, enticing me and then disgusting me with a harrowing scene of bitter revenge sex that's two minutes too long. How, Wright's script asks rhetorically, "can we call something love if it causes so many other people so much pain?"

De Gaulle's solution

But what's the solution to the painful consequences of divorce born from longing, frustration, and boredom? A return to a stoical denial of desire? Polyandrous open marriages? A devaluation of the '60s concept of happiness?

Wright's utilitarian setup argues that whatever momentary thrill or excitement results from the liberation of divorce, it's not worth the misery it causes. Whether happiness is the point of life is another question. When Charles de Gaulle was asked, "Are you happy?" the great general replied, "What am I, a dog?" (To be sure, de Gaulle had a mistress as well as a wife who looked the other way.)

In either case, Luna has taken an unfortunately common situation and made an evening of emotionally entrancing and intellectually satisfying theatre, causing me to walk out with a head full of questions and a heart full of sadness and even shame.