Fifty Words is Not Enough

The subject of a couple breaking up is a difficult topic for any art form to handle, much less the theatre, where all subject matter is compressed onto one stage. The whole workings of a relationship, including its tribulations and successes, has to be implicitly understood through limiting means. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the topic of marital strife cannot be done on the stage. I merely mean to imply that it’s a much harder task for a playwright and theatre actors and director to handle than say if the topic were shown in a movie. If one were to compare Michael Weller’s Fifty Words to a film like Alan Parker and Bo Goldman’s Shoot the Moon, then one can very well see the problems implicit in a stage setting when the topic of divorce is being discussed.
Fifty Words, which deals with only the couple and not their child (he’s merely a concept), is a far different work than Shoot the Moon. Yet, both works deal with the same topic. Ultimately, it comes down to which work has more artistic merit because their topics are so similar, and yet their handling of this topic is so vastly different. In Shoot the Moon, George (Albert Finney) and Faith’s (Diane Keaton) divorce is handled very beautifully because the audience sees how this relationship is under strain, because we have instances when we can see how their relationship affects other people, including their children. We have a real sense of the inherent tragedy of this couple and how this relationship can’t last, even though they deeply love each other; it’s simply a too chaotic and harmful form of love but its love alright. I feel that film is the most realistic example of a depiction of the strife inherent in a relationship than probably anything else before or after it. (More on the reasons for that later). The complexity in Fifty Words is much more limiting, because of the structure imposed by the playwright Michael Weller.
The inherent flaw in the play is the fact that it takes place within a day (or the evening and then the morning.) A relationship is a complex thing to depict, and I do feel that the audience has to, in the end, in some strange way understand the couple in front of them. How else are they supposed to have any empathy and emotional understanding of their situation? Fifty Words is simply one gigantic argument, while Shoot the Moon is the slow disintegration of a relationship. In Fifty Words, the audience has to see the strain that their relationship has had on them over the years. One night and a day does not give you that. Shoot the Moon is therefore a more complex work that constantly surprises like any relationship. I was not surprised in anyway by Fifty Words and I was not moved either. I felt as if I was being assaulted by the actors playing Jan (Elizabeth Marvel) and Adam (Norbert Leo Butz). This is not meant to be a negative appraisal of their performances (Although I did feel that Marvel overdid her anger scenes. If you compare her to Diane Keaton, than she is sunk. Her anger is inadequate to the situation.) Rather, I am criticizing the limiting structure of the argument. Everything is condensed so that there is anger and reconciliation and then anger again, like in any relationship. That means that the audience has to be trapped in this debacle, rather than having a reprieve in which to think about what we just saw. (The reprieve’s in the play come in the form of verbal silences.) It’s the contemplating about what just happened that makes one understand the sadness that is connected with the trials and tribulations of a relationship. We have to see this couple away from one another, like in Shoot the Moon, in order to see how lonely they are without one another. That inherent need is what makes a relationship that is not meant to work out a tragic one. We don’t see that inherent need in Fifty Words; the whole play is verbal abuse and consequently the audience feels intimidated by this couple. They are supposed to be intimidated by each other.
It’s interesting how similar both works are to one another. Yet their implications are entirely different. Yes, in both works there is the scene where the wife realizes that her husband is cheating on her, and starts throwing objects like plates. However, in Shoot the Moon, we the audience are initially confused by this form of violence. We are always confused by George’s actions, and then understand them after the fact. I feel that George realizes this too; this reconciliation is always too late and that’s a metaphor for troubled relationships. I didn’t feel that in Fifty Words. I saw the plates being thrown a mile away, and that’s where my dislike for these characters began. Their arguments are too much justified; these two understand each other like the back of their hand and can’t wait to assault one another. That in itself is an insulting form of characterization. The yelling and reconciliation scenes should be more petty and inane; the arguments should be over stupid little objects that have no significance, like in real life. We should initially back away from them, and then by play’s end want them to stay together. We can’t feel that way if we feel as if we are being verbally assaulted as well. Grace leads to more pain because grace doesn’t last. Scenes should reverberate, like in real life.
The house should be a representation of the couple’s marriage, because verbal abuse is initially so hard to understand. The house in Shoot the Moon is George and Faith’s relationship. Faith has a tennis court built, which is a representation of her moving on. George hates that tennis court, because it’s a representation of how he’s losing his house, his family, and his identity. That tennis court is built by Faith’s new man. We don’t get any of that complexity in Fifty Words; all of the themes in the relationship are forced upon us by an argument. The house in Shoot the Moon is the only way for the audience to understand these two people yelling at each other. It’s an example of the stakes that always eventually appear in a relationship and in a break up. Who’s going to take care of the house? Who’s going to take care of the family? (Why this play doesn’t show how this relationship affects their child is anybody’s guess.) There’s no contrast between the scenic beauty and the painfulness in the relationship, like there is in Shoot the Moon. I know that what I am saying is a little unfair, considering that the play form can’t possible contain these considerations (the stage format is too limiting) but I also feel that this is the type of play that makes one aware of the limitations of the stage format.
We as an audience are also aware of the showboating in the writing. These actors talk to each other theatrically, opposed to how people talk in real life. That line of Jan’s, where she says, “Give me back my power,” is an example of what I am talking about. The audience should understand what’s underneath the words. A couple that is experiencing problems in their relationship, experience them because they can’t outright articulate their feelings toward one another. The way things are articulated in Fifty Words makes what the work means obvious, opposed to this conversation in Shoot the Moon:
Faith: Just now for an instant there—I don’t know—you made me laugh George—you were kind.
George: You’re right, I’m not kind anymore.
Faith: Me neither.
George: You’re kind to strangers.
Faith: Strangers are easy.
My ultimate main problem with Fifty Words is that we don’t see how this couple interacts with other people. We should see that they can’t put up a front, which is the final example of disintegration. This is what ultimately makes the couple tragic and romantic. If Fifty Words were a movie, than it would be cut very rapidly like a Borne film. There would be camera angles emphasizing the actor’s ferocious anger towards one another. The problem with the play is the fact that there are no family members getting in the way of their lunges toward one another. This, ironically enough, makes the situation less depressing and more contrived. You have to feel other people’s pain as well, in order to feel your own. In Fifty Words, the audience daydreams because all we are doing is looking at this couple, and the actors yell at us to wake us up. When a divorce happens, nothing is the same afterwards. A line has been crossed, which is what leads to violence. One partner has a need to tear themselves back into the relationship, when family is involved (that would be George). Because there is no family present in Fifty Words, the audience doesn’t understand the violence. Why was it the playwright and the director’s (Austin Pendleton) choice not to show the son in this play? He would have made the audience torn up about the situation. The least the playwright could have done would have been to show that there’s calm before the storm in a troubled relationship (this leads to tension, which is a quality that this play desperately tries to get at). In Fifty Words, all that’s given to us is tempestuous storm, and what’s ultimately lost is despair.