‘Beyond Therapy’ opens at Village Theatre Guild of Glen Ellyn

The dynamics of dating and psychiatry will take center stage beginning Friday, May 25, when The Village Theatre Guild of Glen Ellyn presents the satire “Beyond Therapy.”

There are few serious moments in Christopher Durang’s spoof on modern romance and psychotherapy, which focuses instead in the ridiculous and delightfully absurd.

“It is a comedy and a satire on people looking for answers in the wrong places and the even crazier people whose occupation it is to provide those answers,” said Director Chuck Bernstein, a member of the guild since 1988. “Yet these people manage to make real connections in spite of all the craziness around them.”

The show opens Friday and runs weekends through Saturday, June 16. Curtain times are 8 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays and 4 p.m. on Sundays, June 3 and 10, and Saturday, June 16, at the northwest corner of Park Boulevard and Butterfield Road in Glen Ellyn. Tickets are $18. For details, call (630) 469-8230 or visit villagetheatreguild.org.

The play’s central characters, Prudence and Bruce, are two Manhattanites seeking stable romantic relationships with the help of their psychiatrists.

Bruce is an emotionally unstable bisexual who tends to cry easily, something homophobic Prudence doesn’t relish. Their first meeting ends in each throwing a glass of water in the other’s face.

The two report back to their respective therapists: lecherous Stuart, who once seduced Prudence, and eccentric Charlotte, who can’t articulate the simplest of words and interacts with Bruce and all her patients with the help of a stuffed Snoopy.

Charlotte suggests a revised ad, which once again attracts Prudence, but this time she and Bruce manage to get past their initial loathing and discover they actually might like each other. Now the couple needs to confront Bruce’s gay live-in partner, Bob, who doesn’t want to lose his status quo.

“Durang has a wonderful sense of language,” Bernstein said. “In addition to being very witty and funny, his writing has a cadence that makes it almost musical. There is, at bottom, something very real about the characters in ‘Beyond Therapy,’ something that I think audiences will find very easy to relate to.”

Bernstein lauded his cast.

“What is so important is that they really connect with each other onstage. They listen to each other. They play off each other,” he said. “It makes the play hilariously funny and, in some places, very touching.”

Cast members include Debbie Roberts of Lockport as Prudence, Marcus Sanghera of Wheaton as Bruce, Vincent Scalone of Lisle as Stuart, Liliana Mitchell of Chicago as Charlotte, Jason Taylor of Schaumburg as Bob and Greg Dvorak of Lombard as Andrew.

“Beyond Therapy” premiered as an off-Broadway production in 1981 in New York’s Phoenix Theatre. In May 1982, the Broadway production opened at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre.