Love Conquers

Critic loves For the Love of Love

by Mark Cofta

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Published: Feb 19, 2008

Too seldom are one-act plays performed, and we don't see many absurdist plays, either — and absurdist one-acts, those all but unheard of. Charging to the rescue: the Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium (I love that name!) with Oh, for the Love of Love!

Absurdist theater — and absurdity in general — resists easy definition, so these three plays about failed romance may not be a likely or logical match, but they add up to an experience greater than the sum of its parts in artistic director Tina Brock's delightfully clever production. If you don't know her, she's easy to recognize: She's the one person who can say "Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium" without stuttering.

First comes Christopher Durang's "Wanda's Visit," in which happily married middle-aged dimwit Jim (Bob Schmidt) invites high school sweetheart Wanda for a visit. Played hilariously by Gerre Garrett, Wanda is a human train wreck: loud in every way (her brain-piercing screech nearly drowning out her neon pink stockings), she's desperately needy, and gloms onto Jim as her latest male savior. The true genius performance in "Wanda's Visit," however, comes from Corinna Burns as Jim's long-suffering wife. As her growing frustration strains her efforts to cheerfully support him, the play's emotional action comes alive on her face, building with excruciating torture to her inevitable explosion (with a wickedly funny Durang twist).

Burns continues her insightful portrayal of domestic disaster in Eugene Ionesco's "Frenzy for Two, or More," which pairs her with Brian Adoff as lovers arguing about anything and everything (snails and tortoises are the same animal, she insists) as a battle rages outside. What will destroy them, their never-ending squabbling or the bullets and bombs on the street?

Sandwiched between these two comedies, but not overlooked, is Samuel Beckett's meditative "Ohio Impromptu," performed by twins Michael and Tomas Dura, two sides of one personality coping with lost love in a suitably eerie performance.

Brock stages all three plays inventively on the L'Etage cabaret's small stage, with the audience hunkered close on benches and stools. The bar's nearby, and indulgence lubricates this zany experience. From all three plays, one might conclude that the love of love leads to heartbreak — and that what alleviates love's misery is the chance to laugh at ourselves.

Oh, For the Love of Love! Through February 28, Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium, L'Etage, 624 S. Sixth St., 215-285-0472, idiopathicridiculopathyconsortium.com.

 

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