ARTISTS REPERTORY THEATRE’S PRODUCTION of Becky’s
New Car presents a dilemma, from this reviewer’s perspective.
Namely, there’s simply no way that I, as a 26-year-old woman, could
ever fully enjoy it. Nothing against the possibility of art to expand
horizons, to bring to life new and strange ways of being, but
Becky’s New Car isn’t offering transcendence—it’s offering
diversion, and of a very specific sort. The show is about the love
affairs of middle age, associating the illicit thrill of adultery with
the reckless sexiness of flooring a new car on the open highway. And
that correlation just doesn’t gel outside of its demographic, which
I’ll diplomatically say skews just a few years older than myself.
Becky (Marilyn Stacey) works for a car dealership; she has an
affable marriage with her roofer husband (“affable” here being a thinly
veiled euphemism for “sexless”), and their son, a grad student in
psychology, lives in the basement. When Becky meets Walter (David
Bodin), an attractive, wealthy widower, she allows him to think that
her husband is dead, and begins pursuing an affair that soon has her
lying to her friends, coworkers, and family.
Becky’s story unfolds on a single set, divided into quadrants
containing four distinct locations: her home, her office, her car, and
her rich lover’s patio. Playwright Steven Dietz is enamored of meta
flourishes that have Becky occasionally conferring with the lighting
operator when she wants to move from one location to another,
transitions that become increasingly frantic as Becky’s control over
her life begins to slip. She also addresses the audience directly for
much of the play, even introducing some low-stakes audience
participation.
Becky’s New Car is a parlor comedy moved to the open road,
and its metaphorical core reflects a markedly dated sensibility. Becky
is happiest when she’s in the car, alone—when traffic is light,
the radio’s on, and the road stretches out before her. This is a mom
fantasy (a mom who’s never heard the phrase “peak oil”). There’s
nothing wrong with that, of course, but I suspect it takes a messy
house full of children before relaxation becomes synonymous with a
discrete, self-propelling environment that’s entirely in your own
control—and a few years of unhappy marriage before an escapist
fantasy like this one becomes relatable.
I got the chance to see Becky’s New Car this past Tuesday. Interpreting this play as a parable about middle age and materialism misses the larger themes. Yes, there were a couple of gimmicks that fell flat. Dietz’s “meta-flourishes” were at times distracting.
However, the type of desperation that the routine and familiar sometimes engender is something I suspect we all feel. Having quite literally walked away from everything and everyone I ever knew weeks ago to come to Portland, I, for one, can identify with the type of escapism felt by the title character. In short, the play’s definitely worth seeing, even for us twenty-somethings.