I DO! I DO! | AMERICAN THEATER COMPANY
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And possibly alter cocker wannabes. I Do! I Do! appeals primarily to idealized feelings of nostalgia, which I suppose can include nostalgia for things one hasn’t experienced–and given current statistics, probably won’t–like a long and more or less happy marriage. The show as revised by Weber follows its two characters, Michael and Agnes, from their wedding night in 1957 (the original starts in 1895) to the day in 2007 when they move out of the Chicago house where they’ve raised their two kids, launched Michael’s successful writing career, and suffered their midlife crises.
If you’ve been married for any length of time, the deja vu here can be vivid. If you’re also a Chicagoan and a member of the boomer generation, it can get a little uncanny. With the help of projections by designer Mike Tutaj, Weber uses old film footage of Chicago and its icons to establish period as Michael and Agnes age. Some of that footage seems to stretch back to the 30s (when, we’re told, Michael and Agnes were born), but other clips depict such boomer landmarks as the WGN kids’ show Garfield Goose and Friends. Identifying with the characters’ marital issues while simultaneously getting thrown back to kindergarten was the proverbial mindfuck: my life flashed before my eyes on multiple tracks, momentarily collapsing my marriage into my parents’ marriage–and, I guess, turning me into my own son.
