Three’s a crowd? 2 plays on polyamory land in S.F.
The Marsh and Custom Made are staging shows that tackle edgy topic
It’s not often that you hear the word “throuple” in a play, let alone for that neologism for three people in a relationship to pop up in two different plays in the same city. But right now there happen to be two shows about married couples experimenting with polyamory playing at theaters in San Francisco: Kate Robards’ “PolySHAMory” at The Marsh and Sarah Ruhl’s “How to Transcend a Happy Marriage” at Custom Made Theatre Co. A former San Franciscan now based in New York, Robards is known for her comedic solo shows contrasting her small-town upbringing in Orange, Texas, with her experiences elsewhere later in life, whether it’s her time living in Shanghai in “Mandarin Orange” or adjusting to life with a wealthy husband after growing up poor in “Ain’t That Rich.” Her shows are inherently linked through her autobiographical character, but “PolySHAMory” is specifically an “Ain’t That Rich” sequel in which that same husband convinces her to open their relationship up to his girlfriend. “I was still touring and performing ‘Ain’t That Rich’ when the polyamory thing started happening,” Robards says. “One reviewer said, ‘It’s a Horatio Alger story,’ growing up poor and marrying rich. But I was performing this and meanwhile my marriage was ending and it was a total disaster.” Once she started performing this particular story, it couldn’t help but ruffle some feathers. “I grew up in a very conservative, rural Texas town, super Christian, went to church all the time,” Robards says. “And my mother was horrified. But when I wrote it I’d been living in the Bay Area, where nobody even bats an eye at that. I grew up being taught by the church you should save yourself for marriage, you should only be with one person. And now my hobby after having left my hometown is following those same local ministers apologize for their affairs on Facebook.” Robards actually found herself getting flak from both sides. “I’ve caught some backlash from friends who are polyamorous who are like, ‘We have enough of a hard time without you talking about your bad experience,’ ” Robards adds. “And I’m like, it’s just my personal story. I believe all relationships can work. My mom has a cat and a dog that are deeply in love.” “How to Transcend a Happy Marriage,” which premiered at New York’s Lincoln Center Theater in 2017, focuses on two married couples whose voyeuristic fascination with a new co-worker’s polyamorous relationship leads them to invite her and her two boyfriends over for a dinner party that changes their lives. “It’s a Sarah Ruhl play with an orgy in it,” says Custom Made managing artistic producer Adam L. Sussman, who’s directing the show. “But what I find really exciting is it is a play about two couples that are happily married and they go through an adventure in which they really examine with an open heart how they experience love in their lives and whether the feelings that they have match the lives that they’re living. And the fearlessness with which the characters pursue that question I find very moving.” Custom Made’s Bay Area premiere overlaps with at least a couple of other Ruhl plays around the bay, including Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s world premiere of “Becky Nurse of Salem,” which closed Jan. 4, and City Lights Theater’s production of “Stage Kiss” in San Jose, opening Saturday. “This is one of the first plays that I’ve encountered in which this idea of polyamory is really taken at face value and seen as a positive thing,” Sussman says. “There’s no broken lives as a result of people experimenting with nontraditional relationship structures. And that I think is actually maybe one of the boldest things about the play. Even more bold than the orgy.”