Maybe you’ll like it, probably you’ll love it
Having a baby is hard but deciding whether to have a baby or not may sometimes be even harder. It’s the XXI century and suddenly having a baby is no longer the next obvious step in a monogamous relationship. It’s a mutual decision between a couple.
Maybe, Probably explores the amazing and horrific power of choice because now if you ruin your life, you only have yourself to blame. The play takes place in Brooklyn, New York where Kate, played by Christy Meyer, and Guy, played by Cory English, struggle with their decision of whether to have a baby or not and if that’s the right next step for the both of them.
Different motivations, desires and fears and outside pressures come into play as the mundane life forces itself upon the couple and the biological clock keeps ticking. The other couple has the opposite issue, Zoe, played by Maria Teresa Creasey, knows she wants another baby and is willing to do another round of IVF, but her stay-at-home husband Hugh, played by Lance C. Fuller isn’t proactive about the process of having another baby.
With one of the best writings I’ve seen in the last couple of months, Maybe, Probably establishes the two main relationships almost immediately with strong, playful and truthful conversations. When creating two characters that have been in a long-lasting relaxed relationship, the challenge will always be how to portray effortlessly the years, months, and days these people have spent together. Because of the hilariously and cheeky writing, the direction by Lydia Parker, and the amazing work of the four actors, these relationships are not only believable, but you end up rooting for them.
Hugh has to take the award for both best dad energy and best comical relief with a stunning and seemingly effortless performance. The complicity between the leads by the amazing work of Christy Meyer and Cory English works to create the intimacy that challenges time. The eye-grabbing, witty energy of Maria Teresa Creasey takes the play to yet another level with her honest and unfiltered observations. There was truly not a dry moment except for the occasional lingering scene transitions that could have been tightened up.
If there has to be one, the star of the show has to be the writer, Eric Henry Sanders, because writing can either make or break the show. And when writing is this good it makes it almost impossible to underdeliver a show. The structure of the narrative is not the feelings or lack of feelings between the main characters since they love each other, they want to be together, and they are together. Instead it focuses on what’s keeping them apart – the fear of what’s going to happen to their relationship if something goes wrong with this new challenge. The conflict is not only the baby but the unknown future.
Whether it’s a baby or a new job or place, protecting the relationship while still wanting to explore new possibilities and adventures is not only relatable to any audience but something people need to see since we are nowadays faced fortunately with so many amazingly scary choices. Maybe, Probably is a hysterical and profound comedy that deserves to be seen as it appeals to the ones who know for sure they want to start a family, those who have already done so and those who are maybe, probably still deciding.