‘Impossible Marriage’ at Ix is easy proposal to accept

Play On!, the relatively new community theater in the old Ix building, has produced a nice variety of shows during its short life.
With Beth Henley’s “Impossible Marriage,” it moves toward the end of its second season with whimsy and heart.
Henley may be best known for “Crimes of the Heart,” which won a Pulitzer Prize in the early ’80s, and on film for “Miss Firecracker.”
Henley is a Southerner, and “Impossible Marriage,” like her other plays, is based around Savannah and features quirky characters not quite in touch with reality, which is what can make them lovable. Or at least interesting.
Here, the hopelessly childlike and romantic Pandora (Devynn Bush) is set to have a garden wedding — wearing fairy wings, no less — to older and larger-than-life novelist Edvard Lunt. Lunt has divorced his wife of more than 20 years to marry Pandora, and long before that essentially abandoned eight children.
When his oldest son, amusingly played by Derby Thomas, shows up to try to stop the wedding, the novelist doesn’t recognize him.
Play On!’s production of this, directed by Shelley Cole, is a credible community theater show. The play’s deceptively difficult, with some language that doesn’t roll naturally off the tongue, and it isn’t Henley’s strongest work, though it can be charming and funny.
The characters are sort of out there, as Henley’s characters often are, but most of the actors here do a nice job with them — which can be harder than it looks.
This would be an easy play for a community theater to take way over the top, and Cole and her cast have done a nice job keeping unreal characters pretty much in the realm of reality.
Mandy McDavid is good as Pandora’s sardonic and hugely pregnant sister, Floral Whitman, who’s almost more quirks than character. She’s got a nice grasp of the character (originated off Broadway by Holly Hunter) and gives a strong performance.
Right up there with her is Jake Roth as a painfully imperfect clergyman.
Most of the others, including Linn Wood as the girls’ mother and Greg Steinbrecher as Floral’s handsome husband, turn in pretty good performances.
The biggest bump in this production is David Key as the aging author. Key gives it his best shot, but he seems miscast in a difficult and crucial role.
The character needs to be flamboyant and larger than life, yet still somehow believable to really work. Key looks more like a favorite uncle, and just isn’t strong enough to help take this show where it might have been able to go.
The show is set in a Savannah garden, and Sid Wood has designed a nice set, complete with a huge backdrop reminiscent of popular artist Thomas Kinkade’s paintings. Alex Citron’s lights work nicely with the set.
The show’s not perfect, but it can be charming, and offers both a chance to see one of Henley’s lesser-known plays, and to support a new community theater as it finds its footing. Run time is just about two hours, with one intermission.