Time warns the audience that they can either, “escape now or the telling of this tale will reduce you…to an addicted coagulation of nostalgia and hope.
Time sees the way to freedom and announces a plan to put the Lily into the show.
The Lily chooses a man from the audience (an actor in disguises) and casts him to play the Groom Deity.
The Great Longing takes a hold of the story and announces that the Lily was a beacon of the Bride's failure and the only thing standing in the way of her happiness.
Mary, who is now revealed to be Susan Stewart, critical theorist, frees Time of the curse of the Evil Stepmother.
The scene opens as Master Sunflower discovers that The Daisies won’t take root.
This prophecy states that a Lily Flower, one with five petals, will free Dirt and destroy The Great Longing's reign.
Master Sunflower announces that this play was inspired by Noh, explaining the slow movement.
When Baby's Breath releases the Lily, it announces the flowers who are going to participate in day’s Haiku-Off.
The Lily is assigned Pope John Paul as a personal trainer and a stylist named Ron.
The Lily announces that it only needs to become a metaphorical man, and Diana, Pope John Paul, and Ron laugh at it.
The Lily begins to wonder if marriage was worth pulling itself from its pot, losing its petals, and staying celibate.
The Lily talks about how it is discovering how marriage is a sexist, exclusionary and limited billion-dollar industry.
The Lily interrupts the wedding and hands the story over to the newly freed Dirt.
The Context Corner is a small library where the audience can go and read about various issues and references from the play.
Other ideas suggested by the script for the Kyogens are: Box Office Boogie, Outdoor Originals, Cafe Camp, Marriage Bashing, Wedding Party Photoshoot Booth, Critics Soap Box, Carpe Diem Demonstration, The Cake Smash, Peepshow Marriage Booth, and Songs We Flushed.
[7] The play also discusses themes of tradition and nostalgia,[6] which are two strategies that anti-gay marriage agendas use as a defense.
[7] Through the structure of the play and through the audience participation during both the acts and intermissions, Mac explores the theme of the Soul of Theatre.
[3][5] Elisabeth Vincentellie of the New York Post said, "It's as if Shakespeare had been reincarnated as a hippie and written a picaresque musical....Some sequences do dilly-dally, and even the wacky internal logic falters by the end, but for the most part this experience is sweet, ramshackle and generous — and unique.
"[13] Charles Isherwood of the New York Times said, My favorite act may be the second (directed by Rachel Chavkin), inspired by Japanese theater and set in an anthropomorphized garden, in which flowers mourn their wholesale slaughter to provide decoration for weddings and engage in a competitive "haiku-off."
'The Lily's Revenge' is as much a party as a theatrical presentation, and you should be prepared to be stuck occasionally in a corner with a less than entrancing conversationalist.
[14]Mitch Montgomery of Backstage.com wrote, Mac has gone to great lengths to express his love-me-love-me-not relationship with theatrical convention, hoping the audience will comprehend precisely the raunchy dialectic between, say, performance art, Japanese Noh theater, and burlesque.
A surprising but suddenly obvious connection lands just right: Both theater and marriage are essentially pure, intimate relationships that have only been corrupted into institutions.
[15]Sam Theilman said in a review for Variety that, Mac's engagement with big ideas — about marriage, about theater, and about love in general — carries the show a long way, and the sheer audacity of the enterprise makes what could potentially be a grueling experience into something cool and fun and even communal, if you're open to the possibility.