Barry Coulter
This is the Book of Man and Woman, and thus it shall ever be.
The Book of Man and Woman is the Encyclopedia of Love, and the new play running at Centre 64 in Kimberley — “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Don’t Change” — touches on every entry from A-Z, telling the story of Man and Woman through song and satire.
This latest presentation by Turner & Adler Productions, a musical by Joe Dipietro and Jimmy Roberts, explores the glorious compendium of love through a series of unconnected vignettes, or short stories — from the Garden of Eden to the aged widow and widower meeting at a wake, and all points in between.
Lover, you will see yourself throughout this play, many times. The four players — Jerrod Bondy, David Booth, Jelena Jensen and Clara MacLeod, displaying their acting chops to the fullest, play multiple roles, and capture every aspect of Love (with a capital l) that you’ve dreamed about and dreaded. Meeting, dating, sex and marriage, and long lives together.
• We hear in painful detail the inner voices of women on the date from hell.
• We see a couple, meeting for the first time, quickly negotiate their way through a year’s-long relationship.
• A revealing, agonized monologue by Rose Ritz, trying to “get back in the game” by recording her first dating video.
• The loneliest threesome — the bachelor visiting his friends the married couple — new parents, to boot. Oh, the social horror!
• My personal favourite: The classic, almost stereotypical phone call from a lonesome single woman to her co-dependent mother, which transforms into an opera scene with chorus of Italian pizza deliverers.
• What is the destiny of the dateless man at the New Year’s Party? It’s terrifying! And it could be your’s!
• A commercial for a law firm whose intervention will guarantee you satisfying sex — or a hefty settlement will result.
And in case you were worrying, there are plenty of meddlesome parents, intervening in your relationship, making you feel worse about yourself.
But it’s not all satire and comedy at the expense of those who would love and be loved. There are thoughtful and intimate reflections on longing, on the depths that love can reach, on the strength with which it hangs on in our lives. But the true spirit of this play is captured in the affectionate but waggish closing number — “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change.”
The play of the same name runs at Centre 64 in Kimberley through Saturday, August 27. “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change” starts Jerrod Bondy, David Booth, Jelena Jensen and Clara MacLeod. It is directed by Tylene Turner, with Elizabeth Adler as Music Director. Showtime at 7:30 p.m. Sharp.