Scene on Stage: ‘The M Spot’

744

You may have heard of the G-spot, but probably not the M-spot. My hunch is you’ll hear a lot about it from anyone you know who sees “The M Spot” at New Jersey Repertory Company.
For starters, the M-spot is closely related to the G-spot, but in Michael Tucker’s play about sex-and-marriage-and-sex, the M outranks the G on the satisfaction scale, despite what you might have heard. Metaphorically, in fact, sensitivity to M opens the pathway to G.
The first “M Spot” act is alternating monologues between longtime married couple Jerry (Tucker) and Maddie (Jill Eikenberry). At first amusing (his more than hers), the solo spots become more and more personal, leading to a two-scene that centers on their interest (his more than hers) in spending a weekend at a sex-therapy resort.
Act Two finds Jerry and Maddie at the resort, where he is on a pre-massage wine-run, and she is confronted by masseuse Star Markowitz (Pheonix Vaughn), whose New-Age approach turns out to be life-changing. Superbly acted by Eikenberry and Vaughn, the two women’s relationship develops over a half-hour from a cautious introduction to a true bonding. Within the scene, brief total nudity is staged and enacted so naturally as to negate any hint of prurience and, indeed, reveals as much about the clothed character as the un-clothed one. (That the intimate, female-centric scene is so well written by Tucker and gracefully directed by Evan Bergman says a lot about both of those men.)
Jerry returns, only to be baffled: What to make of Star’s presence and Maddie’s transformation? What emerges will not be revealed here, except to say that the resolution is totally believable, and that the last few moments – and spoken lines – are perfection.
I asked Tucker what prompted his first-ever written play. When original writers of “L.A. Law” left that show, he told me, they were replaced by writers charged with maintaining the tone of the series. Assuming that “there’s no drama in a happy marriage,” they wrote-in the divorce of the married characters played by Tucker and Eikenberry.
Later, the real-life married couple spent a few years exploring self-realization sessions at various sites in Northern California. Those experiences, and the fictional “divorce,” inspired “The M Spot,” which debunks those writers’ faulty rationale in no uncertain terms.
Through April 5 at New Jersey Repertory Company, 179 Broadway, Long Branch. 8 p.m. Thursday and Friday; 3 and 8 p.m. Saturday; 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday. Tickets ($42): 732-229-3166 or www.njrep.org.