ARTS . Theater Review

Many Happy Returns

1812 Productions makes it better the second time around.


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Published: Apr 16, 2008

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Too few shows in the annual Live Arts/Philly Fringe festivals return for longer runs, so the remounting of 2006 hit Suburban Love Songs promised to be a season highlight when 1812 Productions announced it — and, on second viewing, I found it even more delightful than I remembered.

Director/choreographer Karen Getz recruited actors, not dancers, for this all-dance play set in the cursed ("may you live in interesting times") year of 1968 — a comic actors' ballet that, after all the giggles about the gloriously dippy music and the crazy hippy clothes dissipate, actually says a lot about love and longing in its 55 minutes (the now-traditional Fringe show length).

1812's artistic director, Jennifer Childs, plays a harried host, and Dave Jadico is her uptight husband. Guests arrive: couples Mary Carpenter and Mario Fabroni, Fred Siegel and Getz, plus Dawn Falato, with Amy Smith as the hard-partying maid. They start with suburban showing-off (his hi-fi, her Tupperware), but through games like Twister, lots of booze and a little pot (which Childs battles with air freshener), the characters unwind and explore flirtations and fantasies.

My parents held parties like this. Eight years old in 1968, I recall the same music, drinking and games (though if there was as much hanky-panky, I've blocked it out). I didn't know then, however, how sexy this music was — Tom Jones' "Help Yourself" is hotter than today's graphic gyrating; Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass really cooks — and Getz uses it not for a dance display, but to free her characters' inhibitions and bring their dreams to life.

Most striking is when Jadico connects with Getz in a James Bond fantasy — he the shoulder-holstered spy, she the dazzlingly helpless Bond girl — and then they melt back into their timid selves. All of the characters have these epiphany moments: Suburban Love Songs shows middle-aged, middle-class people finally freed to go for it — at least for an evening.

Truly a transcendent experience, beautifully framed by Bradley Helm's set and Stephen Keever's lighting, Suburban Love Songs will make theater audiences want to see dance, dance fans want to see theater, and everyone want to see Getz's follow-up in this year's Live Arts Festival, Disco Descending, with the same characters 10 years later.

Suburban Love Songs Through April 27, Plays & Players Theatre, 1714 Delancey St., 215-592-9560, 1812productions.org