Stage and film mobsters are often shown murdered by a shower of bullets or well orchestrated hit, but what happens when they just fade away? The Last Days of Mickey & Jean is a love story set against the backdrop of a mobster on the lam.
After seven years of being on the run and not having anyone else to talk to (can’t make friends when you’re a fugitive), Mickey and Jean are getting a little sick of each other. They are also getting older, and playwright Richard Dresser throws in jokes about aging. This is not like watching Uncle Junior age on The Sopranos, nor does it deal with the contemplative and heavy aging issues like The Gin Game or Time Enough. By using stock characters the play doesn’t enter into realism and we are kept at a distance from the characters, not getting to know them well enough to share their concerns. Dresser keeps the play very light.
Dresser claims that the play is fiction, but many feel it’s about local gangster James Joseph Bulger Jr. aka “Whitey” Bulger. The Boston gangster is on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List for murder, drug distribution, extortion, and more. Whitey was a member of The Winter Hill Gang as well as other local organized crime groups. Some say he was also a snitch to the FBI. Some say that he kept drugs off certain streets, others say that he was one of the drug dealers. All of these issues are also issues that are in the character Mickey’s past too. Plus Mickey and Jean both come from Boston. Throughout the play there are Boston references in the dialogue, and one prop that Mickey often handles or wears is a Boston Red Sox cap.
On Merrimack Rep’s end, their contribution to the play is good. Scene designer Bill Clarke puts the couple in a generic hotel room to show how empty and non-connective a life on the run is. When the characters go to other locations, such as a cafe or doctor’s office, the lights go down on the hotel furniture, and simple suggestive props, such as an office chair for the doctor’s office, appear. Lighting designer Dan Kotlowitz suggests these places well.
Merrimack’s talented cast and crew could not save the flatness of this play. Many of the lines are designed to set up a rimshot joke rather than sound like realistic dialogue. One example is where Jean is angry that Mickey has remembered her sister Connie’s birthday but forgotten hers. Jean says, “It shouldn’t be that hard to remember. Since me and Connie are twins.” Very rarely do we have any moments where we get to know the character, and each time we approach those moments a joke is quickly told to ease us away.
The play also relies on stereotypes. Besides the stereotypes followed by Mickey and Jean, Christopher Michale plays three supporting characters, including a doctor with a German accent who might remind some a little bit of Neil Simon’s Surgery. (a short play in The Good Doctor) or of Groucho Marx’s doctor jokes. But Dresser doesn’t bring anything new to the character. Another character Michale plays is Tinsel, a cross-dresser. Many of the jokes surround him being a cross-dresser, nothing we haven’t heard before-this type of predictability applies to much of the show. Considering the lines given, Michale and the other actors do a good job. It is a challenging play to act in as they were given very little character development.
Merrimack maintains a commitment to new work. Their track record includes 16 world premieres and 34 regional premieres. This is a wonderful thing, especially at a time when many theaters don’t take chances with new plays. However, this play did not feel ready to be put on stage. It had an interesting premise (historical fiction; aging gangster) but it felt more like the play was in workshop mode than performance mode. (Workshopping is when a new playwright has professional actors and crew people put on a new piece, and then afterwards he/she obtains feedback in order to help shape and makes changes.)
Dresser is no stranger to the stage. This is his seventh play at Merrimack and he wrote the book for Johnny Baseball, which opens at the A.R.T. in May. He’s published seventeen plays, and had his work performed in Europe and the U.S. He’s twice been part of the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference,, the most competitive playwright conference in the country, and twice been part of the Actors Theatre of Louisville Humana Festival, the most important playwright festival in the country. With a resume like that, it’s surprising that the play wasn’t better. With more development, it has potential to be.
The Last Days of Mickey & Jean runs until April 11 at the Merrimack Repertory Theatre, 132 Warren Street, Lowell.
