Geva Theatre Center
Mark Cuddy, Artistic Director
and
Five Course Love Company, LLC
present
FIVE COURSE LOVE
Book, Music & Lyrics by GREGG COFFIN
Minetta Lane Theatre, 18 Minetta Lane, NYC
October 16 - December 31, 2005
Directed by EMMA GRIFFIN
Sets and Costumes G.W. MERCIER
Lighting Designer MARK BARTON
Sound Designer ROBERT KAPLOWITZ
Orchestrations and Arrangements DAVID LABMAN
Hair Designer BETTIE O. ROGERS
Production Stage Manager MARTHA DONALDSON
Press Representative OPR/ORIGLIO PUBLIC RELATIONS
Cast
Heather Ayers – John Bolton – Jeff Gurner
Are you a fan of humor that doesn’t force you to think too hard to get the joke? Do you enjoy fluffy musical comedy while paying little heed to the depth of plot development? If so, you will be delighted to learn that an indulgent series of vignettes is gracing the Minetta Lane Theatre as a show about love, lust and dining out, FIVE COURSE LOVE.
If you are ready to sit back and enjoy some polished performances, including a series of quickly changing characters and costumes, along with a smattering of stereotyping and some hints of SM kink, you will appreciate FIVE COURSE LOVE. Set in five restaurants over the course of one night, the audience is introduced to everyone from a Barbie in search of her Ken, a Mafioso doing the don’s wife, the members of a bizarre German love triangle, a Frida Kahlo inspired senorita torn between suitors, and a diner waitress pining for a greaser. Happily, the fine and talented cast are on point with every incarnation. Some of the characters are more logical and successful than the others, but the actors do the most with each and every one.
The set is functional and clever. The very stage is framed with cutlery, and with little need for scenery changes, the direction is fluid, fast-paced, and right in keeping with the up tempo of this cheerful musical. The costumes represent the times and the movable feast. Whether depicting a lonely nerd with a pocket protector or a dominatrix clad in lingerie, a vinyl coat and a pink wig, the look of the thing is oh so right. The book and lyrics as well, funding the discourse of the dining, whilst never digging deep, find the funny. Not quite food for thought, but definitely fare for fun, FIVE COURSE LOVE serves it up hot, cold, fast and furious.
Every once and a while a show finds its way to the New York stage that is so charming, and well-conceived, that all I can say is that it is heartily recommended. In the case of the musical comedy called FIVE COURSE LOVE, the play is those things and a lot of fun too.
- Kessa De Santis -