In an impressive attempt at dealing with the sometimes invigorating, sometimes awful side of dating and dating and dating some more in a constructive and artistic manner, Janine Squillari presents her I NEED A GUY WHO BLINKS. A travelogue of romances good, bad, ugly and indifferent, Ms. Squillari’s work is a combination of comic insight, single gal commiseration, and plain old one-person confessional.

I give her credit. It cannot be easy to take something tender like spoiled romance and throw it up on the stage for public consumption. I bet it is damned cathartic though! As is probably the case in most modern lives out there, the realizations that lead to a title like I NEED A GUY WHO BLINKS come from a series of hopeful entanglements that end up as just another collection of romantic missteps.

We all have them, so why do we want to hear about Ms. Squillari’s in I NEED A GUY WHO BLINKS? Well, she has a way of making her relationship woes entertaining, but she never loses her heart and soul for the sake of satire. She dates the "food guy" who carries a potato everywhere. She revisits high school romance and has a chance encounter in Atlantic City. She dates musicians and chefs and the French, and then she gets herself a mannequin. The result? Despite the pitfalls, and despite the pain, Janine Squillari realizes that she needs a guy who blinks. She takes back what she has lost to relationships, she moves on, and she has hope.

Truly one woman’s small story of dating, I NEED A GUY WHO BLINKS has just enough universal appeal to entertain an audience that is not comprised of the performer’s friends. Now, if she would only let me onstage to caricaturize all of my former follies. Then, perhaps, everything would be serene in the world. As one good friend often cheers me on, I say, "You go girl!"

- Kessa De Santis -

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