SARASOTA – I do not laugh easily. Perhaps it is an occupational hazard as a psychologist to be so engaged with human suffering that laughing seems like a luxury. But the Asolo production of Living on Love, which opened Friday night in the Mertz Theatre, made me laugh, and laugh repeatedly, almost as soon as the characters spoke their opening lines and introduced themselves. As the Maestro says about the first time he met the Diva: "Wow!“
Two-time Tony Award winner, Joe Di Pietro’s music-infused plotline revolves around the Maestro Vito De Angelis' (Karl Hamilton) weak efforts and failed attempt to complete his autobiography with the assistance of a reputable ghost writer, Robert Sampson (Josh James). The publishing company wants its literary product, or its monetary advanced payment back, so they send a third-tier editor, Iris Peabody, to collect.
Peabody, played splendidly by third-year FSU/Asolo Conservatory standout Ally Farzetta, comes onstage pretending to be a publishing executive, and appears with hair up, and an aggressive masculine-like attitude, which cannot camouflage her attractive body. Of course, the allegedly-philandering Maestro employs his seductive charms to keep his money and complete the book by using Ravel’s Bolero as his instrument. The physical seduction is interrupted by his wife, the Diva Raquel De Angelis (Rebecca Caine), and incomplete, so the Maestro then delegates Iris (he pronounces it "Irish“) to be the ghost writer.
The Diva, in turn, is taken by the physical beauty of Sampson, the original ghost writer, and delegates him to assist her in writing her memoirs. She seduces him with olive oil. I will leave that to your imagination as to how.
Rebecca Caine, Josh James, Karl Hamilton, and Ally Farzetta. Photo by Cliff Roles.
Two aging stars and two young aspirants to fame provide the elements for the dramatic, hilarious alchemy with a peppering of big operatic melodies perfectly delivered. The content of the dialogue, taken literally, would reveal two hopelessly narcissistic characters, whose dreadful self-importance reveals the underlying psychopathology of inferiority, emptiness and loneliness. But the extraordinary artful skill of this ensemble cast is that the words of the dialogue, in contrast to the manner of delivery and the well-executed alchemy, delivers two hours of virtually constant humor.
And far from any psychological horror, that engagement with a narcissistic, fading star like Normal Desmond of Sunset Boulevard, the storyline of Living on Love ends on a note of hope. It also contains a message to those whose love may be wearing thin or has not been sufficiently acknowledged in the first place.
In real life, it would seem impossible for an opera singer, no less a quartet of them, to have impeccable comic timing. Similarly impossible, would be comic actors to have the capacity to break into several bars of booming, rich, well-known operatic passages, or familiar non-operatic melodies. But we come to theater not to revisit the real world, but rather to experience a world that might be.
Direction by Peter Amster was excellent, with the pace flowing nicely to allow for the audience to react. There were almost no comic lines that were lost or garbled by having been blocked by the roar of audience laughter. The play, delivered in two one-hour acts, passed in a flash, lacking a single lackluster moment.
Josh James and Ally Farzetta. Photo by Cliff Roles.
As the Maestro, Hamilton engages and enthralls the audience from his first lines, while sporting a very good Italian accent to boot. James, also in his third-year at the FSU/Asolo Conservatory, sports a pretty face, toned body and sharp wit as the ghost writer. He comes of age by the end of the production, learning to appreciate both wine and women.
Cain demonstrates a rich, resounding voice as the Diva, and when she sings in synchronization with selected operatic orchestral pre-recordings, her voice booms throughout the theater. She teases the audience. Just a few bars to enable you to recognize the melody and the operatic work, but not enough to be satisfied. If opera is an addiction, her teasing leaves you in a constant state of aria withdrawal. Now, her part in this plot is not a story "about" a Diva. When she begins to sing those segments of well-known opera melodies, the Diva is "there," alive, performing in front of you. The only part that remains hard to conceive is that this operatic talent belongs to a waning career, at least according to the storyline.
Eric (Roland Rusinek) and Bruce (Matthew McGee) are two butlers, who glide across the stage with the grace and ease of any synchronized Olympic sport. Facial expressions, turns of their body and knowing glances shower the audience with hilarity. Sometimes they need not speak a word. Four decades ago over dinner in New York, the renowned director Frank Capra told me that if you can get people to laugh, then they will be open to the message you want to deliver. In the end, the butlers deliver a message about love, as they appeal to the stars not to separate and more. They are actually the ones who sing two complete songs, with their final providing a moving message and a fitting transition to the concluding scene.
(Standing) Matthew McGee and (sitting) Roland Rusinek. Photo by Cliff Roles.
There is some local humor inserted too as well. The Sarasota area has long been known as "the Culture Coast." Fearing a decline, the Diva is invited to perform in Buffalo, Poughkeepsie and Ft. Myers. The Maestro asks, "Does anyone sing in Ft. Myers?"
The artful set was elegantly appointed. And in the age of the Disneyfication of theater, where the set design becomes another actor, the set and costumes by Robert Pedziola perform their rightful function by providing the environment for these characters to come alive; nothing more and nothing less–with the expected grand staircase!
Living on Love is a production worth seeing, and you will assuredly get an evening’s worth of laughs. It runs in rotation through February 25. For ticket information, visit the Asolo website.
Dr. Joseph Amato is a Clinical Psychologist practicing at The Center for Revitalizing Psychiatry in Sarasota. In 1981 he founded a community theatre group in Greenwich CT, where he produced and directed the first seven annual musicals. The group is now in its 34th year.
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