Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade
The set-up is all-too familiar: a crazed fan takes their idol hostage. Indeed, I’m Gonna Marry You Tobey Maguire (The Cell, to July 29), directed with a delightfully off-kilter mischief by Tyler Strubble, even references Misery, that famously dripping-in-sadism movie in which Kathy Bates infamously took a sledgehammer to James Caan’s ankles after ‘rescuing’ him from a snowy car accident.
But Samantha Hurley’s witty and unexpectedly moving play imagines more beyond a simple lunatic psycho torture tale—although it definitely has fun flirting with that too, and tweaking our nerves accordingly. It is set in South Dakota in 2004, where Shelby (Tessa Alberston), who is 14, has somehow managed to kidnap Maguire (Scott Thomas), and covertly transport him from Los Angeles to her home basement, where she has chained him to a pipe.
Dressed up in bridal drag, her longterm intentions comingle with her devotion and delusion: he isn’t going anywhere. Janae Robinson plays both Shelby’s unseen mother, upstairs but just as may as well be in another country. Robinson is also a kind of Maguire inner voice or phantom, tormenting him as he starts inhaling large quantities of aerosols to offset the tedium and horror of his enforced captivity. Robinson is also a scene-swiping real estate agent, Brenda Dee Cankles, who alights on Shelby’s secret jail—and we all know what awaits an interloper when they intrude upon a psychopath’s despicable plans.