STAGE REVIEW ART’s ‘Lily’s Revenge’ is colorful, larky fun By Don Aucoin | GLOBE STAFF OCTOBER 16, 2012 GRETJEN HELENE Taylor Mac as the title character in the ART production of his “The Lily’s Revenge” at Oberon. CAMBRIDGE — At the beginning of “The Lily’s Revenge,’’ a haughty figure named Time, played by Samantha Eggers with a cuckoo clock on her head and two smaller clocks on her shoulders, warns the audience that the performance they’re about to see will be “much longer than advertised. It is so long you may actually forget your name. . . . This play could very well last the rest of your life!’’ You can now read 10 articles each month for free on BostonGlobe.com. Theater & art In Taylor Mac’s larky ‘Lily’s Revenge’ at Oberon, a longing... http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/theater-art/2012/10/15... 1 of 3 4/15/14 10:41 PM
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STAGE REVIEW
ART’s ‘Lily’s Revenge’ is colorful, larkyfunBy Don Aucoin | GLOBE STAFF OCTOBER 16, 2012
GRETJEN HELENE
Taylor Mac as the title character in the ART production of his “The Lily’s Revenge” at Oberon.
CAMBRIDGE — At the beginning of “The Lily’s Revenge,’’ a haughty figure named Time,
played by Samantha Eggers with a cuckoo clock on her head and two smaller clocks on her
shoulders, warns the audience that the performance they’re about to see will be “much longer
than advertised. It is so long you may actually forget your name. . . . This play could very well
last the rest of your life!’’
You can now read 10 articles each month for free on BostonGlobe.com.
Theater & art
In Taylor Mac’s larky ‘Lily’s Revenge’ at Oberon, a longing... http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/theater-art/2012/10/15...
1 of 3 4/15/14 10:41 PM
If truth-in-advertising regulations applied to stage dialogue, plenty of plays would begin with
similar warnings. But you’re not likely to look at your own timepiece very often during the
four hours and 20 minutes, including several intermissions, that it takes the American
Repertory Theater production of “The Lily’s Revenge’’ to unfold at Oberon. There’s too much
to see, hear, and generally absorb.
CONTINUE READING BELOW ▼
A five-act phantasmagoria written and conceived by Taylor Mac and directed with finesse by
Shira Milikowsky, “The Lily’s Revenge’’ blends satire, music, dance, verse, film, fable, and
vaudevillian hijinks into a tale of an intrepid, pure-hearted flower named Lily (Mac), battling
the forces of history, culture, and social convention in its bid to marry a human.
That might make the show sound cloying, cutesy,
and ham-handed, and in truth, sometimes it’s all
those things. More often, though, you’re caught
up in its sheer, gaudy, irrepressible theatricality.
If Busby Berkeley had dropped acid while
watching “Pee-wee’s Playhouse,’’ the result might
have been “The Lily’s Revenge.’’
In a very funny sequence just before Lily uproots itself from its baby-blue pot, Mac dons a top
hat and twirls a cane, every inch a prima donna. The flower envisions its life to come as a
showbiz fable, complete with adulatory crowds; producers and celebrities knocking on the
dressing-room door; and introspective moments in front of the makeup mirror, when the
hollowness of fame stands revealed.
For all its larky antics, an unmistakable message is woven throughout the dreamlike “Lily’s
Revenge,’’ which premiered in New York in 2009 and won an Obie Award. It comes across as
an allegory about gay marriage while making a broader argument for the simple freedom to
love who you want, be who you are, and control your own story.
For Lily, that means breaking free of “institutionalized narrative’’ and the suffocating,
pervasive force of false nostalgia for a world that never existed. These spirit-constraining
qualities are represented by The Great Longing, who proclaims that the Bride Deity, well
played by Davina Cohen, cannot marry a flower.
CONTINUE READING BELOW ▼
Embodied as a fuming, tyrannical theater curtain, The Great Longing is portrayed by none
other than Thomas Derrah, who pulls out all the stops. One of Boston’s finest actors — his
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In Taylor Mac’s larky ‘Lily’s Revenge’ at Oberon, a longing... http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/theater-art/2012/10/15...