FIVE COURSE LOVE
Tickets on Sale Now WHAT DO THE CRITICS SAY?
DIRECTED BY: caryn desai
STARRING: Christopher Carothers, Perry Lambert & Jennifer Shelton
Three actors, five restaurants and fifteen zany characters. Mix 'em up and you have the ingredients for Five Course Love, a deliciously over-the-top musical comedy about five calamitous dates.
Five Course Love imagines five dates in five different restaurants, each with its own distinctive cuisine and musical style to match. Gregg Coffin's music menu serves up an ingenious variety of song stylings, ranging from pop to German cabaret to 1950's doo-wop and much more!
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READ WHAT THE CRITICS ARE SAYING
FIFTEEN CHARACTERS IN SEARCH OF LAUGHS FIND PLENTY
By Shirle Gottlieb, Special to the Press-Telegram
IT'S "THE GOOD OL' summertime" and you know what that means: Everyone wants to slow down, relax and be royally entertained. With that goal firmly etched in your brain, make haste to downtown Long Beach, where the Southern California premiere of "Five Course Love" is on stage at International City Theatre.
The creation of Gregg Coffin (who wrote the book, then composed 250 pages of music and lyrics for the show), this wonderful, witty, over-the-top comedy is just what the doctor ordered.
In a nutshell, three versatile performers play 15 zany characters whose search for love in five different restaurants leads to five total disasters
Well, almost.
You couldn't ask for a better cast. Under the fast-paced, dynamic direction of caryn desai, who doesn't use capitals in her name, they strut their stuff with well-trained musical theater techniques, solid comedic timing and broad-brushed bravado. From the subtle lift of an eyebrow to the in-your-face pelvic thrusts, every movement is crisply choreographed by Brian Paul Mendoza.
When Christopher Carothers easily transforms himself from an insecure, bachelor nerd in Scene I (Dean's Old-Fashion All-American Down-Home BBQ Texan Eats) to Gina, a tough Mafioso gangster in Scene II (Trattoria Pericolo) and to a masked, Zorro-esque hero in Scene IV, you know you're seeing a first-rate performance.
When Jennifer Shelton changes from a whip-lashing, leather-clad, fraulein dominatrix in Scene III (Der Schlupfwinkel Speiseplatz) to an innocent, unspoiled Mexican senorita in Scene IV (Ernesto's Cantina) and to an all-American girl thirsting for love in Scene V (the Star-Lite Diner), you know you're watching class-act entertainment.
Shelton is really something: all that talent plus a beautiful voice wrapped up in a stunning figure.
By the time Perry Lampert's musical theater attributes take him from a raunchy Texas waiter, to a deferential Italian mob waiter, to an acey-deucey-goosey German waiter, to a humble rural Mexican waiter, you have to admit it: You have been royally entertained.
Everything takes place on Dan Wheeler's delightful set (decorated with red hearts, pink flowers and gingerbread woodwork) under the winning light design of Jeremy Pivnick.
Kim DeShazo designed the colorful, screwball costumes, and an on-stage three-piece band (directed by Janice Rodgers Wainwright at the piano) accompanies the trio through each hilarious, romantic tryst.
On opening night, peals of laughter started to ricochet through the audience at the beginning of Scene I, then built steadily for 90 minutes until the end of the play when a crescendo of approval roared through the theater. Needless to say, the audience jumped to its feet with a well-deserved round of applause for each performer.
LOOKING FOR LOVE IN ALL THE WRONG DINERS
'Five Course Love' may not be deep-dish fare, but it is a delightful repast.
By David C. Nichols, Special to The Times
A hefty dollop of crowd-pleasing gusto garnishes the Southern California premiere of "Five Course Love" at International City Theatre in Long Beach. The verve on tap turns author Gregg Coffin's tuner, which traces the search for amour by 15 characters at five contrasting restaurants, into a giddy musical comedy buffet.
After a zany opening-announcements chorale, sound designer Paul Fabre's traffic noises introduce the three richly versatile performers. The wonderful Christopher Carothers, whose sensitive nerd Matt, racing to a blind date, bookends the proceedings, sings "A Very Single Man."
As the scrolling signs on designer Dan Wheeler's heart-adorned set announce "Dean's Old-Fashioned All-American Down-Home Bar-B-Que Texas Eats," its proprietor, proficiently embodied by Perry Lambert, lands his country patter with a zeal that recalls Stubby Kaye.
Enter beer-chugging Barbie, played by the sublime Jennifer Shelton as a hot-to-trot hellion in Daisy Dukes. From here, "Five Course Love" charts a series of thwarted encounters, reaching fulfillment at the agreeably foreseeable finale. Coffin's lyrics are often very clever and his melodies serviceable, if not quite memorable, and are as varied as operatic parody, for the adulterous mob doings at the Trattoria Pericolo, and '50s doo-wop, for the Star-Lite Diner. A near-zarzuela flavor permeates Ernesto's Cantina, and faux-Weill underscores the bisexual pretzel at Der Schlupfwinkel Speiseplatz.
That hofbrauhaus is the most hilarious venue, approaching Mel Brooks in its show-stopping lunacy. Here, as elsewhere, director caryn desai and choreographer Brian Paul Mendoza display considerable wit. The designers follow suit, costumer Kim DeShazo and hair designer Anthony Gagliardi up to mischief and Jeremy Pivnick's lighting another exemplary plot to add to his resume.
All three strong-voiced players change personas and tone as easily as musical director Janice Rodgers Wainwright's snappy band dons new hats for each sequence. Carothers' shifts from farcical to bravura and Lambert's ability to go from loco to touching are wholly impressive. Shelton, who seldom gets so wide a berth to ply her sharp comic wares, goes for broke, especially her German dominatrix, a hysterical blend of Marlene Dietrich and an acrobatic strudel.
True, this show is hardly deep-dish fare, laden with an excess of phallic jokes and sometimes stereotypical. Mexican American audiences may resist the dated attitudes of the cantina segment. Who knows what Tony Soprano would make of the trattoria caricatures.
Nor, for all its fluffy self-awareness, does Coffin's concept dish up the kind of larger point within pastiche that distinguishes, say, "The Drowsy Chaperone." Still, its practitioners earn their gratuities with shamelessly entertaining panache, which makes "Five Course Love" an enjoyable, albeit lightweight, repast.
