REVIEW: Fandom takes an all-consuming turn in Samantha Hurley’s dark comedy ‘I’m Gonna Marry You Tobey Maguire’
This is not your average teenage crush.
A wild-eyed teenager is determined to make her dreams come true…even if he is under duress.
With zany direction by Sydney T. Grant, Yorick Ensemble continues Samantha Hurley’s dark comedy, ‘I’m Gonna Marry You Tobey Maguire’ live and in person through Saturday, September 13 at Hovey Players in the D’Angio Building in Waltham, Massachusetts. This semi-interactive fringe production is not limited to the stage, contains some mature language and humor and runs approximately two hours with an intermission. Click here for more information and for tickets.
Set in 2004 in secluded South Dakota, I’m Gonna Marry You Tobey Maguire infuses online fandom and Y2K pop hits into a dark coming-of-age comedy with hints of Misery for beginners and a whisper of Carrie. However without the gore, not quite a horror movie and never really takes itself too seriously.
Alexa Erb’s illustrative scenic and props design produces a brightly colored bedroom with traces of Shelby’s various obsessions including a princess petal bed canapé, flowered walls covered in Tobey Maguire photos, gleeful frog printed bed sheets, Barbie dolls and a curious chart of Tobey’s whereabouts. Josh Telepman keeps up the show’s seemingly cheerful façade in jungle prints, fanciful pink layered ensembles with lace gloves and a fanciful wedding dress.
Crossing a soft smile with a seemingly vacant stare, Demi DiCarlo impresses and is occasionally sympathetic as intense Shelby who may be calculating but not diabolical, at least according to her trusty issue of Cosmopolitan Magazine. She quips, “I’m not bad. I’m romantic.” However, her anxious smile, madcap reactions and unsettling actions hint at something more just underneath the surface.
Socially awkward and an only child, Shelby spends her days after school in a basement bedroom as President and founder of the Tobey Maguire Fan Club communicating to members through a handheld camera disassociating and fantasizing about actor Tobey Maguire. Secluded from the rest of the house, her basement bedroom almost seems like she was sent there to be ignored except when her nagging mother needs something.
Learning the facts of life through Cosmo, fairy tales and all things Tobey Maguire, delusional Shelby has deduced that the only solution to her isolation and loneliness is to capture and marry Tobey Maguire at the ripe age of 14.
To make matters more absurd, teenage Shelby does (seemingly impossibly) capture Tobey Maguire and has him chained in the basement. Where is security or his entourage? It is also hard to imagine Tobey Maguire afraid of a 14 year old, but the Tobey in front of her is not the Tobey she imagines. Sam Hackett is quite fittingly not a Tobey Maguire doppelganger portraying far from that sparkling example of optimism and well meaning persona amplified in Spiderman’s No Way Home. Never meet your heroes, right?
As Shelby’s illusions shatter, things really start to get out of hand.
Alison Butts does double time portraying various roles that move the plot along from the voice of Shelby’s mom to a kooky real estate agent.
With flashes of Y2K nostalgia, I’m Gonna Marry You Tobey Maguire has its moments of intriguing self-aware humor, a wealth of pop culture references and a special appearance which will not be revealed here. It would do better without its share of superfluous and raunchy gags that do not advance the plot and would benefit spending more time fleshing out what makes Hackett’s egotistical, complaining, irascible and drug-addled Tobey tick.
I’m Gonna Marry You Tobey Maguire is a cautionary tale of obsession, loneliness, isolation, trauma and infamy which, like Shelby, loses itself a bit along the way. As someone who has loved something teetering beyond reason, this outlandish tale stretches the imagination to conceive a dark comedy of what happens when fantasy and reality collide.
Yorick Ensemble continues Samantha Hurley’s dark comedy, I’m Gonna Marry You Tobey Maguire live and in person through Saturday, September 12 at Hovey Players in the D’Angio Building in Waltham, Massachusetts. Click here for more information and for tickets.
