Wilson Freeman
Baltimore’s Iron Crow Theatre continues its ‘Season of Transgression’ following an all-too-brief production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Iron Crow is Baltimore’s queer theatre, using the term in the broadest sense to celebrate the renegade and unorthodox in all of us. The company’s new show, How to Transcend a Happy Marriage, certainly upholds those descriptors.
How to Transcend a Happy Marriage, written by Sarah Ruhl, is set in ‘the wilds of New Jersey’, somewhere in the suburbs perhaps. The show opens with a young woman hunting with a bow and arrow, killing her prey, but with no context in the moment as the scene shifts to the home of Jane (Asia-Ligé Arnold) and Michael (Gabe Fremuth), who are entertaining their best friends George (Valerie Dowdle), a nickname for Georgia, and Paul (Jonas Connors-Grey). Their conversation takes a turn when Jane mentions her co-worker who is in a polyamorous relationship with two men. Questions are posed as to how it works, but Jane has no answers, only that the woman’s name is the less-than-exotic Debra … but she goes by Pip. She was also a vegan but now eats meat that she has slaughtered herself in a more ethical manner. Curiosity gets the best of them all, so they pick a date to invite Pip and her partners to dinner with the only available date any of them have is New Year’s Eve.
Pip (Frankie Marsh) and her partners arrive for the party, and it’s clear she was the woman hunting at the beginning. She introduces David (Sam Fromkin), pronounced Daveed, and Freddie (Jake Stibbe), and it’s not a minute until they are bombarded with questions about their lifestyle. Paul had attempted to slaughter a duck for dinner, but it went horrible wrong, but he’s hoping the Peking duck he picked up on the way will suffice. Michael and David quickly bond over mathematics, with David kind of putting down Paul for being an architect, or former architect who doesn’t respect the math, or more pointedly, doesn’t respect the triangle as the strongest form. George and Pip begin to bond over music and karaoke, and Freddie has been handing out his homemade brownies — has brownies. As those who have partaken in the brownies, and that is just the two couples, get more and more stoned, George breaks the fourth wall to tell the audience that this is when everything in their lives changed. And boy, does it as they engage in a massive orgy where anything goes until … Pip and her partners disappear, leaving George with Michael, and Jane with Paul going at it in the living room when Jane and Michael’s daughter Jenna (Gab Ryan) walks in.
Wilson Freeman
In Act 2, Jenna has run away (she’s staying with a friend but won’t answer her phone) and George is hanging out with Pip, hunting in the wilds of New Jersey. An unfortunate accident lands them both in jail, but when the guard comes and Pip says he’s going to hurt them, she disappears, leaving a feather behind. George believes Pip turned into a bird. She’s released from jail but she and Paul have to camp out at Jane and Michael’s due to protesters in front of their house (word got out about her accidental kill), forcing the couples to navigate what happened on New Year’s Eve, which Jane has no interest in revisiting. David and Freddie show up thinking Pip might be there, unaware that she had been in jail (where she revealed to George that for legal purposes her name is Diana). They leave to search for her, but Jane, Michael, George and Paul must come to terms with their marriages and their relationships with each other, wondering if monogamy is all it’s cracked up to be.
How to Transcend a Happy Marriage is part comedy, part relationship drama, part magical realism that questions the age old traditions of monogamous relationships that is sure to leave audiences thinking. On the surface, the marriages of Jane & Michael and George & Paul seem solid. They both have kids, and they have weathered the ups and downs of being married, sticking to those vows of ‘for better or worse’. But it’s also clear that the couples are in a rut. Yeah, the do all the things married couples and parents do, work, arrange dates on their calendars for music recitals and vacations, but we have to question if the original spark of romance is still there. They love each other but are they in love? Throwing the new dynamic of Pip, David and Freddie into their mix — not to mention those brownies — opens up a whole new world of fluidity for them, something they weren’t prepared to deal with, and which Jane does not want to deal with. But they must, because you can’t just have sex with three strangers and your best friends and not deal with that elephant in the room. In the end, it’s not really about relationships, it’s about love, who we love and are we capable of having love for more than one person. It’s a very provocative subject, and Ruhl presents it in a way that isn’t just black-and-white, leaving the audience to make up their own minds. Director Ann Turiano guides the actors through the story, cleverly using the small space and James Raymond’s set design that features a dead forest surrounding Jane and Michael’s living room, also using the front of the stage area for Pip’s hunting and the jail cell. Janine Vreatt’s lighting design also helps set the mood in the different settings of the story. Kitt Crescenzo’s costumes perfectly suit and define each character, and Anne Hammontree’s props all feel natural to the setting.
Valerie Dowdle is wonderful as George, the one character who has to go through a whole gamut of emotions, while also at times acting as a sort of narrator or storyteller. Even when George is beginning to fall apart emotionally, Dowdle can still get some laughs especially as her belief that Pip turned into a bird grows even stronger (for very specific reasons in Act 2). Asia-Ligé Arnold is wonderful as Jane, easily handling the comedic and dramatic moments of her character arc. This writer has seen Arnold perform at both Baltimore Center Stage and Toby’s Dinner Theatre, and she is always wonderful, her talents reminding me of Regina King. Gabe Fremuth gives a nice performance as Michael, probably the more laid back of the four characters, but is the one who actually pushes the couples into confronting their feelings. Jonas Connors-Grey’s Paul is more outgoing and given the chance could probably rattle off a list of dad jokes. Where Michael takes a step forward in Act 2, Paul becomes more subdued as George becomes more troubled, at times making us wonder if he will stay with her. These four are the core components of the story and they all do some wonderful work.
Wilson Freeman
Frankie Marsh is outstanding as Pip, really shrouding the character in mystery, making us all wonder if she really is some mystical creature who can transform into a bird. It’s interesting when she almost regressing to being a young teen or pre-teen when the karaoke machine comes out, but she easily becomes seductive when the brownies really kick in (she nor David or Freddie partook of the treats), a siren luring these four people to the rocky shore of romance, and really becoming a friend to George, trying to help her navigate what had transpired. Sam Fromkin is compelling as David, mostly incredibly intense as a character of indeterminate origin (he’s from nowhere but everywhere with a vaguely Eastern European accent), haughty in a sense that he seems to think everyone is beneath him because of his intelligence, but he softens a bit when he finds a kindred spirit in Michael. Jake Stibbe is the most comical of the characters, giving Freddie a joyful innocence while being fiercely devoted to Pip and David. Gab Ryan makes the most of her short time on stage as Jenna, giving an authentic performance as a teen who saw things she did not need to see and has to deal with it as much as her parents do.
How to Transcend a Happy Marriage is clever, funny, sometimes absurd, and ultimately thought-provoking as it challenges the societal norms of what relationships are. It’s a show to see with friends or romantic partners and then talk about later, questioning where you yourself stand on the side of monogamy or polygamy. After seeing the show, you may even surprise yourself.
How to Transcend a Happy Marriage runs about 100 minutes with one 15 minute intermission. This production contains irreverent humor and mature themes, It includes sexual content, simulated violence, and satire that touches on sensitive topics or depictions related to gender, immigration, religion, alcohol, substance use and death. Additionally, the production incorporates moments of nudity, loud sound effects, haze, and bright, strobing, and reflective lighting effects. Viewer discretion is advised.
How to Transcend a Happy Marriage runs Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays through April 27 at Baltimore’s Iron Crow Theatre. Visit the official website for more information. Iron Crow’s next production is the cult classic musical The Rocky Horror Show, June 13 – 29, 2025.