Review: ‘Beyond Therapy’ Entertains With Three Stages

“Beyond Therapy” follows two main characters Bruce and Prudence who keep answering personal ads in the newspapers and end up on dates with one another. The dates usually don’t go well because Bruce has a lover that he lives with named Bob. Prudence has an issue with Bruce being bisexual because she did not know that people could be bisexual.

Bruce and Prudence both have therapists who are terrible at their jobs and they give their patients terrible advice. The whole situation blows up in the last act with confrontation between Bob (Bruce’s gay lover) who feels rejected because he is being replaced by Prudence.

“Beyond Therapy” premiered at Chaminade’s Loo Center on Friday and was thoroughly entertaining with all of the different motives behind each character and at one point there were so many subplots that any hope at resolution between all the characters seemed impossible. There are still five more performances from Nov. 8-11 at 7:30 p.m. and Nov. 12 at 3 p.m.

The play consists of 2 acts and a 15 minute intermission with 9 scenes all together. The cast maintained believability throughout the whole hour and fifteen minute performance. Memorizing lines seems to be the biggest challenge that new actors face when portraying a believable character. But there was not a single moment where one of the actors dropped a line or even stuttered which really impressed me at the end of the show.

The six actors in total transitioned between the three stages from scene to scene that allowed the play to flow smoothly. My fellow students that performed in this show impressed me with their abilities to stay true to their individual characters throughout the entire performance.

CUH’s Claire Paul, the set designer, had to get creative because the show required 4 different scenes and the theater in the Loo Center is quite compact. The entire area was utilized by using two corners of the room as additional stages so that there were three stages in total.

This adaptation of “Beyond Therapy” was directed by Chaminade’s Gary E. Morris, who has been an associate professor in Theatre and English at Chaminade since 2003 and has directed 28 productions here at Chaminade including this production of “Beyond Therapy.”

“Beyond Therapy” is a play written by Christopher Durang that was performed for the first time at the Phoenix Theatre in New York City on January 1, 1981. This play eventually was brought to Broadway at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre in New York City by 1982.