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<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: 24pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";"><font size="6"><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">Dating and mating, 21st-century style</span></font></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Published:
Friday, January 21, 2011 1:07 AM EST</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Reviewed
by FRAN HELLER<br>
Contributing Writer<br>
<br>
Men and women – you can’t live with them, and you can’t live without them.<br>
<br>
Playwright Rich Orloff dissects this truism in “Romantic Fools,” a wacky comedy
about male-female relationships and looking for love, 21st-century style. It’s
at Actors’ Summit
through Jan. 30.<br>
<br>
In a series of short scenes, Orloff satirizes the games men and women play in
the ongoing war between the sexes. Some vignettes are funnier than others, and
a few fall flatter than a sour note. But there’s more than meets the eye in
Orloff’s screwball take on dating and mating. Alternately comical and crude,
insightful and off-the-wall, beneath the laugh lines lies a keen observer of
human nature.<br>
<br>
In this age of online dating, singles’ events and personal ads, the playwright
suggests that men and women are looking for Mr. and Ms. Perfect. In skit after
skit, Orloff dismantles this fantasy of a perfect relationship with slapstick
and bite.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">The couple of this zany piece are Andrew (Keith
Stevens) and Lori (Shani Ferry). Both Stevens and Ferry are regular Actors’ Summit company members,
and they play off each other hand in glove and with perfect comic timing.<br>
<br>
Direction of the dozen skits is divvied up between four directors, yet it feels
seamless in these two actors’ variable portraits. Directors are Neil
Thackaberry, Shawn Galligan, Daniel Taylor and Peter Voinovich.<br>
<br>
MaryJo Alexander’s rendition of a contemporary single’s pad, painted in vivid
geometric splashes of color and coupled with Kevin Rutan’s psychedelic
lighting, is mood-perfect.<br>
<br>
In the prologue, Lori and Andrew mutually lament the difficulty of meeting a
guy or gal. In the first scene, “Find Me a Primitive Man,” Lori gets fixed up
on a blind date. When her date turns out to be a caveman draped in leopard skin
and bearing a bouquet of flowers and a slab of raw meat, the two negotiate the
terrain of “communication” through a game of charades. Thumping his chest,
grunting, and prancing about as he mimics killing and foraging for food,
Stevens is riotously funny as a Neanderthal with feelings.<br>
<br>
Underscoring the buffoonery is the clever notion that since primitive times,
communication between men and women has had its challenges.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">In
“Nightmare with a Sexy Skirt,” Andrew meets the date from hell, a needy,
manipulative woman who attracts and repels him like an alternating current. One
of the funniest moments in the show occurs when Andrew nears the bedroom, and
an alarm bell goes off.<br>
<br>
In “One Man’s Secret Desire,” Andrew indulges his secret fantasy by hiring a
call girl (Ferry at her sexiest) from an escort service. But in a reversal of
expectations, what Andrew desires is “dull” sex (as opposed to “kinky”). “It’s
the desire guys are most afraid to admit to modern women,” he says.<br>
<br>
There’s poignancy and humor in “The Stepford Guy,” in which the woman complains
that living with Mr. Perfect is not a normal marriage. Stevens is a riot as a
hopelessly contrite husband struggling to pick a fight with his increasingly
exasperated wife.<br>
<br>
In “Nice Tie” (one of my favorites), a man and a woman meet at a bar. When he
offers to buy her a drink, she refuses, launching into a monologue about all
the things that can go wrong in a marriage. This segment is about the fear of
commitment and risk-taking: Whereas she fears their marriage might turn out
badly (adultery, divorce, and two dysfunctional kids), he says it might just
turn out the opposite (staying faithful and raising two Merit Scholars.)<br>
<br>
A game of arm wrestling serves as a stimulus for sex in “Power is the Greatest
Aphrodisiac of Them All.” One of the funniest scenes is “Spaghetti Overture,”
in which Andrew has buried Lori’s engagement ring in a gigantic mound of pasta.
It’s pure shtick, but Stevens is such a consummate mugger, that I laughed in
spite of such silliness.<br>
<br>
The sweetest vignette, “Bride & Groom,” is also the last. Ferry is adorable
as a pouting bride who gets cold feet at her own wedding and refuses to go
through with the ceremony. (Shades of Neil Simon’s “Plaza Suite” and Stephen
Sondheim’s “Company.”) Lori demurs because she’s afraid they’ll get divorced
just like much of the rest of her family. The couple argue and decide to call
the whole thing off until they hear the wedding march and happily change their
minds.<br>
<br>
“What fools these mortals be.” says Shakespeare’s Puck about the irrational
nature of human love. “Romantic Fools” proves Puck’s observation as pointed as
ever.<br>
<br>
For mature audiences.<br>
<br>
WHAT: “Romantic Fools”<br>
<br>
WHERE: Actors’ Summit,
Greystone Hall, 6th Floor, 103 S.
High St., Akron<br>
<br>
WHEN: Through Jan. 30<br>
<br>
TICKETS & INFO: 330-374-7568 or <a href="http://www.actorssummit.org/">www.actorssummit.org</a></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
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