As I walked out of the Carl J. Shapiro Theater Thursday night after watching Big Love by Charles L. Mee, I felt awkward. Stretched out. As if I were unsure of whether I should have laughed there or not, whether I should have taken that line so seriously or not, whether I even enjoyed myself or not. Reflecting with a few friends afterward in the Einstein Bros. Bagels, I came to realize why I felt so awkward: It was because of the nature of the play. These characters are searching for happiness while immersed in the tension of deciding whether to be independent people or women contracted by marriage to men (and vice versa). This agitated search for identity and love is represented within all aspects of the performance-driven, almost avant-garde play, but it is unclear whether this helps the production reach its full potential or not. The first thing that struck me when I walked into the theater was the beautifully structured stage. Swimming in an artistically?textured oceanic blue, it's calming and takes your imagination to the countries of the Mediterranean, in which the play is set. But in contrast to the colors, the patterns took me by surprise as well. The background, painted in stark blue and white stripes radiating from a blue center, reminds me of the flag that the Japanese adopted as their fight symbol during World War II. The columns, though now crumbling and destroyed, are reminiscent of the architecture of the Romans, who were, at one point, the undefeated conquerors of the entire known world. Everything about this stage screams "power," and the possession of power and control over one's life remained a significant symbol throughout the play.

The plot is based on another play written by the Greek dramatist Aeschylus and called The Suppliant Woman. Fifty brides and 50 grooms are to be married to each other. Not one of them has a say in whether or not she wants to be wed. So the brides run away. The grooms chase after. They meet in Italy, where the brides hatch a plan to escape their fates. It's a dramatic story into which Mee decides to spin his own thread. In my opinion, the humorous one-liners work. But writing dramatic monologues that require the actors to roll around and leap over things and slam the floor with their fists-it's just not tasteful.

The performances of the actors were rather stiff and timid in general-unfortunate afflictions suffered by opening-night performers and younger thespians-but there were some flashes of greatness that brightened the general atmosphere. Rachel Kelmenson '13 brought tenderness to the role of the Mother but also easily slipped into the flamboyant and shallow character of Eleanor-she was one of the only performers of the night who didn't seem like she was "acting." Rachel Garbus '13 and Dan Katz '13 both gave fiery antithetical monologues that provided welcome, unrestrained moments of emotion and passion on the stage. However, during the scenes in which trios of only male or female actors deliver raucous and rhythmically-driven rants about the other sex, the timidity of their previous performances made these sudden changes in mood seem ridiculously overexaggerated.

The play made a mockery of the obsessions that people tend to adopt while on the search for love. But the ending message was warmly philosophized on stage by Kelmenson and aided by a hilariously exaggerated, but still quite gentle, fairy-like presence by Giordano (Nati Peleg '13). The message was a good one about temperance and only loving for the sake of love. If Mee had decided to take his own final word in the writing of Big Love maybe it wouldn't have seemed so strangely disconnected and blocky. But all in all, it was a valiant and respectable effort made by the Brandeis Ensemble Theater, worth watching and worth pondering.