LOVE MATCH

After the restrictions of history (JESSE JAMES) and adaptation (DRACULA), Joe was eager to write something from an original idea. He wanted to explore some of the vagaries of the modern dating/romance scene, and an imperfect but understandable shorthand for his script became, “a male SEX AND THE CITY.”

Joe developed four male characters heading towards middle age, but still looking for love (or some short-term equivalent). He then bounced them off various females and various situations as they experienced love, lust, marriage and divorce. He set the main action in a bar which was the guys’ favorite hang-out, and devised other situations/spaces for the characters to interact.

Again, the Company would perform at Technisonic Studios. With David and Joe in the cast, they chose to co-direct (along with Mike Sneden of the Arbor Group), and cast a great group of performers.

The show garnered lots of laughs, but also tried to point out sometimes poignant truths about the ways men and women deceive each other and themselves.

In Joe Hanrahan’s new LOVE MATCH, modern urban guys Brian, Scott, Rick and Eddie would do anything to dodge commitment and intimacy. This is a bit surprising, because they’re slouching toward middle age, a little late in the day to be so naïve and cynical about romance. They’re the centerpiece of this “comedy/tragedy,” which has some splendid theatrical moments and frequent jolts of emotional insight. There’s even Mametian eloquence, such as Rick’s monologue about how the word “share” has become irretrievably corrupted into “she wants to dump all over you,” a winning peroration of overwrought rage. Yet where LOVE MATCH goes astray is when commentary suffocates storytelling, reducing a promising premise to stereotypical cliche and gender-slagging.

Brian and Eddie (Hanrahan and David Wassilak, who share directorial credit with Mike Sneden) are sensitive guys; Scott and Rick (Steve Springmeyer and Larry Dell) are slef-proclaimed “scumbag dickheads” who embody rage and sleaze, respectively. Brian and Eddie’s occupations (tyro software designer and actor/director enable them to meet their inamoratae, Sarah and Jennifer (DeDe Splaingard and Rachel Jackson), an Internet entrepreneur and actress. We get to see Brian and Sarah’s relationship begin, and here’s plenty of bitter epilogue, but virtually nothing abut what ensues. Similarly, Eddie, a thoughtful fellow shoe obsessions include astronomy and plate tectonics, casts mainstream actress Jennifer in THE CHERRY ORCHARD. Yet their interaction reduces him to her babbling style of discourse, saying “Wow!” and “Cool!” We never get a sense of why thee fellows are smitten and helpless, which is a flaw in the script more than the fault of the actors, who are, for the most part, quite fine.

Oddly enough, stale come-ons work just fine for the scumbag dickheads. Scott chases after lawyer Ginger (Tina Farmer) but scores with legal secretary Leslie (Karen Klaus), who’s cartoonish about her post-divorce trauma. For all his griping about sharing, he blathers abut work, and then, somewhat predicatably, gets dumped. Much of LOVE MATCH takes place in a bar, where Wanda and Gary (Sara Rutherford and Eric Baldwin) Work. Wanda says nary a word to the other cast, yet sets up successive scenes with flat, runic commentary. Alas, the female roles range from bland to degrading, making for a lopsided presentation.

The staging is also a mystery. LOVE MATCH is presented in a voluminous TV studio, yet the audience is crammed into long rows. Most scenes are presented at extreme downstage right or left, which means, depending on your seat, you’re staring straight up or across to see the actors, who play on the same level. Even so, one presumes Hanrahan is paying attention to what’s working – and not – onstage. If his sharp and convincing THE BALLAD OF JESSE JAMES is anything to go by, he’ll continue revising this piece – and aim for depth rather than depth charges.

The sustained use of metaphors from the worlds of computer technology and astrophysics may seem an unlikely hook upon which to hang a play exploring male-female relationships and why they so often don’t work. But in local playwright Joe Hanrahan’s comedy/tragedy LOVE MATCH, the ideas work well, bringing some thoughtful perspective to this well-trodden ground. Though not stunning in its impact, the play succeeds on the whole, the best aspects of it overcoming certain flaws to make for an entertaining and worthwhile ninety minutes of theater.

Much of the content is familiar from other treatments of the same themes: most men are pigs, women want things few men are able or willing to give, and so on. But the text gives more dimension to its characters, or gives it more convincingly, than is sometimes the case. Even the most apparently Neanderthal of the men has a moment of weakness in which he admits to wishing he could actually like a woman. I’m not sure I’d say that any of the characters really grows – I don’t think that’s the intention – but some of them do experience at least fleeting revelations about truths greater than those that drive their normally self-serving approach to life. And I mustn’t neglect to mention Mr. Hanrahan’s witty dialogue: there is no lack of unhappiness in this text, but there are a a lot of laughs along the way, some broad, some barbed, some subtle, some quite dark. At the very least, this is very entertaining stuff. At its best moments, it says things about human nature that are both true and original, to me at least.

One thing that doesn’t work for me about this play is the dozen or so brief poetic interludes, delivered under a simulated moonlight effect by Sara Rutherford in the role of Wanda, the barmaid. It’s hard to say whether the poetry itself is ineffectual or if it was undermined by an overmannered and artificial reading, but it’s probably a bit of each; I think I might appreciate just reading the text of those sections more than I enjoyed them in performance. The quality of the acting in this piece is pretty uneven. The production as a whole could probably benefit from a slightly more brisk tempo and smoother transitions between vignettes, and stage energy, evern for a philosophical work such as this is, could have been slightly higher. But I would not wish my comments about a few shortcomings to deprive this show of the audience it deserves. As I mentioned earlier, the production as a whole overcomes these failings, and there are some very niche touches along the way, from Eric Baldwin and Tina Farmer each making memorable moments out of unglamorous roles, to Larry Dell’s portrayal lof a misogynistic car salesman, to Rachel Jackson’s subtle discovery in the text of TWELFTH NIGHT, ot the counterpoint provided by the sound design. There is a lot more to like than to quibble with abut this show.