
Relationship comedy fits nicely with lighthearted lineup
By CHRIS PAGE
Get Out
Downtown Scottsdale is on its way to becoming our own mini Great White Way for pop theater, the kind of fluffy, edgeless stage stuff that uses stereotypes and jokes as sharp as Nerf darts to craft rib-tickling, easy-pleasing productions.
The Scottsdale Center for the Arts has its dueling “Late Nite Catechisms” and manages a neighboring “Menopause — The Musical,” comic cash cows that reach for specific audiences (from my own observations, “Catechism” works for 30- to 50-somethings and “Menopause” skews older).
Now comes the Scottsdale Desert Stages Theatre’s production of Joe DiPietro’s musical comedy “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change” — opening a two-month run in the company’s secondary Actor’s Café cabaret theater — and it looks like the charming show could aim for the oft-ignored 20- to 30-something crowd.
Since opening off-Broadway in 1996, where it continues today, “I Love You ...” has seen its fair share of stagings in the Valley. At the Desert Stages’ cabaret stage, though, it’s given a more intimate feel thanks to the small, 70-seat theater’s cozy layout and a four-person cast that has responded to the smallness of its environs by playfully working with the audience.
Young actor Michael Aurit already proved his ability to tease crowds as the Emcee in Desert Stages’ “Cabaret” last season, and though there’s no menace here in his fun, funky cast of fresh-faced young singles, middle-age bachelors and, hey, even an old Jewish flirt at a funeral, Aurit doesn’t think twice about turning his attention to someone in the front row if it’ll pull an extra laugh.
His male accomplice is Jonathon Bowersock, a Desert Stages regular whose singing voice is always a warm, welcome surprise.
Often, Aurit is paired in sketches with young actress Jessica Godber, with whom he shared accolades for their work in “Cabaret.” Godber works her blend of youthful sultriness and nervous, adorably comic Goldie Hawn facial expressions to full effect, and the icing on the cake is her stellar singing voice, wonderfully eating up the spotlight in the star-turning solo number “I Will Be Loved Tonight.”
It’s no wonder then, with so much goodness coming from those actors, that their fourth, Alaina Beauloye, would get swallowed up. Though Beauloye shares equal stage time with the other three, she plays what feels like an overall supporting role with muted emotion, and her solid but unremarkable singing is easily forgotten in the mix.
Much of the show screams out to be discovered by younger audiences. In fact, older theatergoers might be turned off by the sometimes salty, suggestive language of this show.
But that’s OK. Because if there’s a lesson to be divined from “I Love You ...” it’s best directed at the young masses of club-hopping singles fishing for last-call hookups at Scottsdale’s posh watering holes.
DiPietro seems to be saying: Part of love, at any age, is learning to accept the clichés, even with laughter. You can’t get a more popular message than that.
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