You already know if you’ll enjoy I’m Gonna Marry You Tobey Maguire. If that title piqued your interest, I’m 90 percent sure this dark comedy from Iowa Stage Theatre Company is worth your time. It’s currently running at Des Moines’ Stoner Theater, with shows through Sunday, June 14. Go see it.
In case you’d like to know a little more beyond the title, here’s the deal: I’m Gonna Marry You Tobey Maguire is a three-person play centered on the fictional Shelby Hinkley (played by Alyson O’Hara), the president of an online Tobey Maguire fan club circa 2003. For context, that’s the year after Spider-Man came out and put the 28-year-old actor on the map; Seabiscuit was in theaters, and Maguire had just won Best Kiss at the MTV Movie & TV Awards, shared with his ex-girlfriend Kirsten Dunst.
Shelby has something of an unhealthy obsession with Maguire. In the first 10 minutes of the play, the 14-year-old South Dakotan manages to execute a meticulously laid planned to kidnap the star (played by Michael Ladell Harris) from a Los Angeles dentist’s appointment and smuggle him across state lines into her basement.
What unfolds from there is a raucous comedy that, yes, is dark, but never feels mean. Playwright Samantha Hurley has empathy for her teenage main character and, outrageous though Shelby’s goals may be, Hurley manages to make the audience root for her more often than not.
Harris plays the captive actor pitch-perfectly, in that he isn’t really doing a Tobey Maguire impression but — early on, especially — has a few line reads and quirks that feel true to the celebrity. From there, as the performance becomes increasingly unhinged and further from our understanding of the celebrity, it reads as Tobey Maguire both unraveling and revealing his “true” self.
O’Hara turns an even more impressive performance, managing to portray a 14-year-old with all of the vulnerabilities of a teenager. She characterized Shelby so earnestly that, even though I’d been certain I was watching a 20-something woman, I felt convinced she was an actual teenager.
I’d also be remiss to go without mentioning Whit Ellsworth, who plays the handful of other characters/voices in the play that Shelby and Maguire interact with. Ellsworth leans into the sight gags, physical comedy and fourth wall breaks that come with those parts with just as much enthusiasm as the two leads, and is a delight throughout.
The play manages to be firmly set in early 2003 and is appropriately bathed in the aesthetics and pop culture of the time — from allusions to Seabiscuit and Shrek to CRT TVs and Tamagotchis. Still, the play manages to weave in a few more contemporary references that still feel appropriate to the era. (Allusions to Leonardo DiCaprio’s dating life and musical internet apologies, to name a couple.)
It’s a solid production of a play that’s only a few years old, from a dedicated cast and crew. I took a friend who’s seen very little non-musical theater and he ranked it favorably. Whether you’re a fan of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy or would enjoy seeing its star suffer, I think you’ll absolutely dig on this.
Isaac Hamlet has, at various points, been an arts & entertainment reporter and editor based in Iowa City and Des Moines. He also writes fantasy books under the pseudonym R.E. Bellesmith.
