Phillyist Reviews... Suburban Love Songs

This review is cheating.

You see, I saw—and reviewed—Suburban Love Songs nearly two years ago when it was performed at the Live Arts Festival. In fact, it ended up being one of my favorite performances of the festival. But I just had to see if it was still the delightful show I'd then found it to be, or if my enjoyment of it had merely been because of its accessibility in a festival that leans toward the avant garde.

To help me in my evaluation of 1812 Productions' remount of the Karen Getz-conceived, choreographed, and directed dance theatre piece, I enlisted Ross, because (a) he didn't see it during the '06 Festival, and (b) he doesn't usually show any interest in accompanying me to dance performances. If he liked it on first viewing and I still enjoyed it on my second, I figured, I could feel completely confident in reviewing the show—nearly identical to the original production in every way but for the presence of Amy Smith—positively for the second time.

The piece—I hesitate to call it a play as not a word is spoken over the course of its 50-minute duration—is set at a cocktail party in 1968. Even if you didn't live through the sixties (I missed them by 14 years), something about Getz's party seems incredibly true to the time: Tupperware parties, Twister, polyester (the fantastic costume design was orchestrated by Charlotte Cloe Fox Wind, who I'm proud to say was a professor of mine several years ago), marijuana, and a heaping amount of Herb Alpert and Sergio Mendes all take centerstage as the attendees, apparently dissatisfied with their current couplings, try swinging into others. It's surprisingly chaste and hilariously funny, especially when Getz and Dave Jadico lock eyes while playing pass-the-orange and perform a Frank-and-Ginger-meet-the-sixties comic pas de deux while the rest of the company fades, West Side Story-like, into the background.

Jadico has another scene-stealing moment onstage when he, joined onstage by Fred Siegel and Mario Fabroni, presents his brand new hi-fi system with all the pride and bravado of a matador conquering a bull. The vignette is much funnier than I could ever make it sound in a review, and in fact had the audiences in stitches for its duration. But despite the men's strong performances in this and other similarly comedic scenes, the women of the piece (Getz, Smith, Jennifer Childs, Dawn Falato, and Mary Carpenter) are the ones who truly dominate it. With the exception of Getz and Smith, these performers (male and female) are actors, not dancers, and the women fully inhabit the work's conceit. Childs alone, well known in Philadelphia as an actress with tremendous comedic talent, is here the woman of a thousand facial expressions (seriously, check her out at center in the photo above), and Carpenter and Smith fly into each other's arms with such lascivious relish that it gets a laugh every time. Smith is also delightful when, after taking a few hits from Falato's gleefully provided joint, she comes onstage with a handful of god's gift to the munchies: Twinkies.

Although the actual footwork can get a bit repetitive (you can't expect actors with no dance training to do much more than the mambo), the individual vignettes that start each time another song begins never grow stale. I had worried that, with a full staging, Getz might have felt compelled to expand the piece from its original running time, but fortunately, not a single song has been added, and the show leaves the audiences wanting more rather than outwearing its welcome. If anything, the new production somehow improves on the original, although I can't say exactly how. What I can say is: go buy tickets. And have a lot of fun.

Dave Jadico, Dawn Falato, Jen Childs, Karen Getz, Mario Fabroni, Mary Carpenter in 1812 Productions' Suburban Love Songs, continuing at Plays and Players Theater through April 27. Photograph by J.J. Tiziou.