Susan’s Eastern spiritual leanings are a constant source of frustration for James (in what may be the best one-liner you’ll hear in New York this summer, James comments that "[he’s] never put 'exorcism' in the memo box of a check before"). In the play’s most emotionally taxing scene, that frustration becomes a matter of life and death. Yet Susan is as much a source of comfort to James as she is a source of rage. In James' family, a long-lasting marriage is an exception rather than the rule.  Consider his dying sister who's marrying a violent Australian, a father who can’t hold down a marriage, or his more clueless sister, who owns a salon un-ironically named “Façade.”

While a one-man show usually makes its director invisible, here Hal Brooks establishes himself as this generation’s premier director of the format. Between Thom Pain, No Child, and now Life in A Marital Institution, he’s built a signature style of quick shifts, segmenting a play by lighting changes, and brief, abrupt audience engagement. The guidance he has provided Braly’s performance has proven to be invaluable.

After a few years of an identity crisis after Spalding Gray’s death, the monologue has made a triumphant return with a bevy of new, creative plays. Life in A Marital Institution opens as Mike Daisey’s How Theater Failed America, a similarly, frank, honest one-man show, just finished a heralded run a few blocks away. In today’s culture of theatrical excess, there’s a premium on unassuming, direct plays that cost a lot less but resonate a lot more. Life in A Marital Institution succeeds precisely because of its small goals. Who would have thought selling an apartment on Central Park West would be worth it after all?