I’m Gonna Marry You Toby Maguire – Review of 2024 Southwark Playhouse Production

I’m Gonna Marry You Toby Maguire is a farce by American playwright Samantha Hurley that is now playing at the Southwark Playhouse in London. The play premiered in New York in 2004 and the same production has been brought to England.
The play is about Shelby Hinkley (Tessa Albertson), a 14-year-old, troubled girl who in 2003 falls in love with Spiderman actor Tobey Maguire (Anders Hayward). Shelby is the President of the Tobey Maguire fan club. Her basement, the headquarters of the club, is decorated with a huge poster and photographs and memorabilia of the movie star. The obsessed teenager has managed to abduct Maguire and she has him handcuffed to a post in her basement and intends to marry him.
There is also a third character (played by Kyle Birch who plays Brenda Lee Cankles, an exuberant, full-size real estate agent and usually appears from behind Maguire’s poster or yells commands to Shelby. She deserves credit for her brave performance as an off-the-wall agent.
Maguire is perhaps a credible fictitious character with whom Shelby is obsessed. She discovers that he is a cigarette smoking, uncircumcised, alcoholic who is forced to go through a wedding ceremony with Shelby. She provides him with a book about the Stockholm Syndrome hoping that he will fall in love with his captor.
Albertson is the central character, and she moves and talks at great speeds and understanding her personality escaped me. She shrieked frequently at ear-piercing volumes that were at best unpleasant.
I’m Gonna Marry You Toby Maguire is billed as a comedy and there were a few laughs during the evening that I saw it but not that many. There was an issue about seeing all the action on the stage. Maguire is handcuffed to the post close to the audience in the first row. This made it very difficult to see what was going on at times. The post and the action should take place further back from the seats.
The set Designed by Rodrigo Hernandez Martinez with every wall in the theatre covered with Maguire memorabilia looked like a shrine to the actor and what a crazy teenager might do for her hero. Lighting by Holly Ellis was a kaleidoscope of frequent changes from bright to flashing to a phantasmagoria of different shades. At first I tried to follow the changes as differentiating between fantasy and reality but gave up. It is all different versions of fantasy and I could not keep up with the changes.
Director Tyler Struble who also directed the New York production maintained the frantic pace, but I could have done with a lower volume in the shrieks and a better placement of the action. I hasten to admit, that I am not the play’s target audience.
As may be obvious, the play and the production did not resonate with me. After the performance I obtained a copy of the play and Hurley provided me with some comfort for my lack of appreciation. She writes about the play’s target audience:
This is a play for my people. This is for the girlies who were writing One Direction fan fiction and also for One Direction, hiding in the back of restaurants, sprinting to the car to avoid the aforementioned girlies. This is for anyone who has ever kissed a glossy Tiger Beat poster in their room – and also for Zac Efron who undoubtedly has to put up with many people saying that they used to kiss posters of him.
Regretfully, I am not any one of those people.
I’M Gonna Marry You, Toby Maguire by Samantha Hurley continues until August 24, 2024 at the Southwark Playhouse, 77-85 Newington Causeway, London SE1 6BD. http://southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/

‍