Some Couples May

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effects by director Guy Sanville.

Some Couples May, by Carey Crim, at first blush, seems to be back in more familiar Purple Rose territory, a sedate suburban drama of quiet anguish. Emily and David (Rhiannon Ragland and Bill Simmons) are a rich and infertile couple whose frantic pursuit of parenthood has taken over their lives as they struggle through a series of torturous IVF treatments. Their troubles are contrasted with those of two other couples: David's slacker brother Henry and wife Faye (Alex Leydenfrost and Michelle Mountain), who can't seem to stop reproducing, and whose dreams of doing anything else with their lives are swirling down the drain; and David and Henry's parents (Jan Radcliff and Jim Porterfield), whose lives are beginning to devolve into the full-time job of staving off terminal illness. Crim, daughter of long-time Channel 4 news anchor Mort Crim, is a favorite in the Rose's talent stable. She wrote two other plays for the theater: Growing Pretty (2008) and Wake (2009). (All four Purple Rose plays this season are world premieres by playwrights with Michigan connections, and all three of them so far have been set in the Detroit area.)

I said "seems to be" back there because laced throughout Some Couples May, like a drawstring pulling a slack corset tight, is a wicked little plotline that's neither sedate nor stereotypically suburban, involving a lot of leather, thigh-high boots, and whip cracking. The naughty sprite who gets to wear this get-up is Aphrodite Nikolovski, who is not only a bright and fun presence, but invests with surprising credibility her character's philosophy that life is better when taken with a bracing dose of torture.