221 Quarterline Road
Muskegon, MI 49442
USA
Classical drama collides with modern-day excess in Charles Mee’s Big Love, a fiercely extravagant adaptation of Aeschylus’ The Suppliants that The New York Times described it as “an MGM musical in Technicolor, a circus and, believe it, a Greek tragedy.” Big Love is a luxurious, riotous, wild romp in which 50 brides – all sisters – vow to escape their 50 fiancés – their cousins- on their wedding night. Seeking to get away from the old country, where marriage is contracted and love is unheard of, the sisters leave their betrothed standing at the altar as they hop a boat for better times and a little equality. As the brides seek asylum at the villa of a family man who is unwilling to take sides, the grooms catch up – by helicopter. With no one to stand up for them, the women decide to stand up for themselves by any means necessary. Big Love gives the term “battle of the sexes” a whole new meaning!
Mee himself has said, “I like plays that are not too neat, too finished, too presentable. My plays are broken, jagged, filled with sharp edges, filled with things that take sudden turns, careen into each other, smash up, veer off in sickening turns. That feels good to me. It feels like my life. It feels like the world. In this way, Big Love presents some of the most familiar male and female stereotypes and literally smashes them up against each other to see what will happen.”
Through comedy, Mee seeks to open dialogue about deep and often difficult topics. Mee touches on questions at the core of feminism, sexism, entitlement, ethics, revenge, passion and courage. Mee’s characters ask audiences to think about what it means to be a man, a woman, a human being, or a refugee in today’s world through wild humor and shocking entertainment.
