Crying for Love

A dizzying exploration of matrimonial power shifts, Noel M. Smith’s Crying for Love centers on the hapless Eddie, whose persistent courtship of an Amazonian figure only yields fruit through a fortuitous betrayal. The protagonist’s victory is catalyzed by the bride’s discovery of her former fiancé’s philandering with a flapper—a discovery that triggers a visceral, slapstick upheaval. What follows is a subversion of domestic tranquility; the bride, portrayed with tectonic authority by Blanche Payson, initiates a reign of physical dominance, beginning with a chaotic wedding-day clearance and extending to a honeymoon defined by the unceremonious ejection of her groom from a moving flivver. The narrative reaches its crescendo at a housewarming event where Eddie, pushed to the brink of emasculation, resorts to a pharmaceutical intervention. Consuming 'strength-giving pills' that act as a chemical deus ex machina, he reclaims the patriarchal throne through a display of hyperbolic force, culminating in the bride’s literal defenestration from a three-story height. It is a frantic, grotesque ballet of gender roles and physical comedy.