Theatre in Review: I Married Wyatt Earp< (Prospect Theatre Company and New York Theatre Barn/59E59)

	Carolyn Mignini and Mishaela Faucher. Photo: Gerry Goodman

Walter Kerr once described a certain misbegotten musical as "a bad idea gone wrong." It's the perfect description for I Married Wyatt Earp, in which some talented people have made some very strange decisions, resulting in a form of artistic self-sabotage.

The "I" of the title is Josephine Marcus Earp, wife of the famous lawman. When we meet her, it's 1944, and she is an elderly widow, working as a technical advisor on the John Ford film My Darling Clementine, which depicts Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and the events leading up to the shootout at the O.K. Corral. Josie learns via a phone call that her version of these events is being challenged by another expert -- Allie Earp, widow of Virgil, Wyatt's brother. Suddenly, these lifelong frenemies are thrown together for an all-night battle over the past.

As the flashbacks start unfolding, we learn that Josie and Allie have been at each other's throats for decades, going back to the day they met in 1879. The place is Tombstone, Arizona; Allie; her mother Bess; and her sister Mattie; all ex-fancy ladies, have purchased a saloon in what they see as a bid for respectability. All three ladies are "married" - in other words, they live with - a member of the Earp family. Josie, having escaped middle-class Jewish respectability in San Francisco, shows up in Tombstone as the leading lady of an all-girl Gilbert & Sullivan troupe. She quickly becomes a local celebrity and takes up with Johnny Behan, a local lawman. The relationship unravels when Johnny starts selling racy photos of her, and before long, she's involved with Wyatt Earp. This unhinges Mattie, his "wife," never mind that her opium addiction has long ago ruined their relationship .This and a series of other tensions lead to the O.K. corral, followed by a ladies' showdown that results in tragedy.

It's rich, complex material, and the decision by the librettists, Thomas Edward West and Sheilah Rae, to focus on the women involved is an interesting and valid one. But they haven't stopped there -- to make sure that we don't get distracted by all the gun fighting and cattle rustling, all male characters have been banished from the stage. It's a choice that proves counterproductive in many ways. Josie and Mattie's battle over Wyatt becomes so much less interesting when you have no sense of who he is as a man. (Similarly, Josie's affair with Johnny Behan is hard to evaluate, since we never get a look at him.) Oddly enough, their absence has a way of highlighting how these so-called tough, independent women are defined almost entirely by the men in their lives. (This impression is not relieved by a subplot involving Hattie, Allie's adolescent sister, and her disastrous attachment to an outlaw, and another one featuring Kate Haroney, who gets beaten up by her lover, Doc Holliday.") In fact, what with everyone standing by her man and furiously fending off any interlopers, I Married Wyatt Earp teeters perilously on the edge of becoming a two-act catfight.

The ladies-only format is unhelpful in other ways, too. The principal one involves the vast amount of exposition that must be delivered, covering the shifting alliances among the men and the growing animosity between the Earp men and the Clantons and the McLaurys, both tribes of robbers. Despite their importance to the narrative, the authors aren't able to make them seem real. Allie and the others are sometimes reduced to being messengers, delivering lengthy bulletins describing the far-more-interesting events taking place offstage.

The score is extremely variable, although Michele Brourman's music has an appealing twang and an impatient syncopation that nicely matches the characters' tough-minded, assertive ways. "Don't Blame Me for That" is a tart, spiky duet for the older Josie and Allie, and "I Ain't Goin' Back" catchily finds the Earp ladies making plans for their future. But "Little Black Sheep," in which Josie, the object of scandal, brazens it out on stage at the saloon and wins over everyone with her talent, proves to be pedestrian rather than electrifying. "In the Cards," featuring Bess, Allie's mother, using a pack of tarot cards to predict the rest of the second act, feels awkwardly set to music. The finale, "All These Years," wraps up the enmity between Josie and Allie far too easily.

Under the direction of Cara Reichel, Carolyn Mignini and Heather MacRae, playing the older Josie and Allie, comport themselves like the true pros they are. MacRae even copes with a wig that looks like a lace doily affixed to her head. Mishaela Faucher is a real looker as the young Josie, and she sings nicely, but a more volatile temperament would have been useful. Stephanie Palumbo is appropriately tough and commanding as the young Allie. (One of the best things about the casting is that the two Josies and Allies resemble each other; you can easily believe you're seeing one person at different stages of life.) Except for one overwrought scene of opium addiction, Anastasia Barzee's Mattie is a touchingly lost soul.

Ann Bartek's two-level set hides the band upstage, a decision that results in a very cramped downstage area, which may be one reason why all of Joe Barros' dance numbers consist of the ladies forming a circle and revolving for a minute or two. Jorge Arroyo's lighting rig isn't detailed enough to evoke so many realities-past and present, indoors and out, on stage and off. Ryan J. Moeller's costumes draw a nice distinction between Josie and her theatrical colleagues and the Earp women, who dress for utility. Andy Leviss' sound design is happily discreet and naturalistic

. In the end, I Married Wyatt Earp is a case of too much material handled too awkwardly. There's a musical in there, however, if anyone wants to try. -- David Barbour