Theatre in Review: Bees & Honey (MCC Theater/The Sol Project)Bees & Honey begins charmingly and ends in well-earned sorrow; in the middle, however, this collection of scenes from a Dominican-American marriage dawdles rather noticeably. Playwright Guadalís Del Carmen has a fine ear for the verbal tactics -- ranging from lighthearted to brutal -- deployed in spousal combat; she also makes a solid case that Johaira and Manuel, her protagonists, are unlikely lovers yet strangely right for each other. It's a conundrum: Their profound differences fuel their mutual passion and drive them apart. It's an interesting argument, if one made too deliberately. One thing Johaira and Manuel share is a love of bachata, the distinctive Dominican music style that tosses Caribbean, European, and African elements into a savory rhythmic-melodic casserole. "This music either breaks your heart or it heals it," Johaira says. Of the Dominican singer Juan Luis Guerra, Manuel says, "All the babies born in the '80s and '90s is cuz of him," adding, pointedly, "His music wasn't for fuckin'; it was for lovemaking." Naturally, he meets Johaira in a nightclub. "Every guy looked like he was in a Diddy video or was trynna be the next reggaetón superstar," she recalls. But, seeing Manuel staring at her, she notes he has "not the salesman fake smile, or the papi chulo half-cocked I'm-too-cool-to-fully-smile smile. No, he had a 'I'm so happy to see you' smile. And then I smiled, cuz how could I not, right?" The strength of Bees & Honey resides in such passages. Del Carmen's dialogue is a kind of spoken bachata, blending Spanish, street slang, and a dose of pure New York attitude to witty, often crackling, effect. Early on, Johaira and Manuel's marriage thrives on their distinctive, conflicting personal styles. She is a prosecuting attorney, working mostly on sexual assault cases, a job she treats as a calling. The owner of a car-repair service, he is a reformed drug dealer who hangs with the guys. To be sure, each accommodates the other: He allows himself to be schooled in feminist theory - amusingly we see him listlessly thumbing through a volume by bell hooks -- and she splurges on the Playstation of his dreams, indulging his addiction to gaming. Feeling romantic, he makes sure to get them both in the mood by whipping up something delicious for dinner. Optimism is easy; both are on the way up, she in line for a major promotion, he by expanding his business into multiple locations. When this idyllic arrangement starts to erode, it does so by degrees. Del Carmen is interested in the hundred-and-one things that eat away at the happiest of marriages: career conflicts, mother-in-law trouble, children (or the possibility of), and illness. It's a standard list, each item seemingly manageable on its own until a pair of disasters -- one professional and one personal -- lay bare the crumbling foundation on which this relationship rests. Del Carmen gambles that dwelling at length on such corrosive details, waiting until late in the evening for real conflict to erupt, will pay off in the long run. But so many issues are litigated that the action slows to a near-halt. Some are trivial, even silly, for example when Manuel gets aroused watching a stressed-out Johaira eating a banana, or when he attributes her upset to the monthly menstrual cycle. Others would seem to require more investigation, including a quickly passed-over argument about whether Dominicans count as Black. (He says no; she begs to differ.) Del Carmen telegraphs the outcome of an assault case that could help or harm Johaira's career prospects; it's not the first time in Bees & Honey that the audience is one step ahead of the characters. Even during its longeurs, however, Melissa Crespo's production features two lively, distinctive performances. The tall, rangy Xavier Pacheco, casually swaying as he moves, his big-eyed gaze capable of boring into chromium -- exudes charisma as Manuel. Brandishing a wry smile that is, alternately, a sign of amusement and a signal of distress, Maribel Martinez's Johaira dismisses Manuel's macho-man poses with the same briskness that she rehearses her closing argument in court: "You triple-reassure when you lie," she says, busting him authoritatively. At the same time, she glows with their good fortune at having found each other. Even when you wish Del Carmen would get on with it, you're rooting for this beleaguered pair, worrying about each missed couple-counseling appointment. When the break at last comes, the brief reunion that follows, for the purpose of emptying their apartment, is filled with a muffled tenderness that is heartbreaking. Crespo has also assembled a fine design team. Filling out the naturalistic living room-kitchen combination of Shoko Kambara's attractive set are colorful murals, by the artist Danel Peguero, that evoke the allure of Washington Heights. Reza Behjat's lighting is marked by subtle details that signal changes in the emotional weather, among them an ultra-romantic mirror ball effect. Devario D. Simmons' costumes are beautifully suited to each character -- in Johaira's case, they also track her descent into depression. Germán Martínez's sound design ably supports the original music by Dilson while providing an atmospheric playlist by the Dominican musical personalities Andre Veloz and Amara La Negra. In its estimation of damage done and the persistence of love, the final scene is so moving that one unhesitatingly concedes the honesty of Del Carmen's writing. If Bees & Honey could at times use an injection of drama, it at least introduces us to a new playwright worth watching. Indeed, she is exactly the sort of talent The Sol Project should be supporting and cheers to MCC for giving it such a classy production. --David Barbour 
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