Mechanics of Love

Mechanics of Love is a comedy by Dipika Guha, produced by To-By-For Productions. It’s about Glen, husband to Faizi and buddy to Georg, who marries Francesca. It seems that Glen has a condition – he forgets things. And he’s forgotten that he’s married to Faizi. We learn later that this isn’t his first bigamous blunder. “After the fourth wife, I got used to it,” Faizi tells Georg.
But a poor memory doesn’t account for all the play’s romance. Faizi and Francesca fall in love, Georg and Francesca fall in love, Georg and Faizi fall in love… Okay, maybe it’s just lust sometimes, but in short, everyone falls for nearly everyone else, for no reason whatsoever. The mechanics of love, Ms. Guha is telling us, are the mechanics of anarchy. “What if this is all there is?” Francesca says, “No present. No past. No future.” And, for this playwright, no reasons.
Everything in a drama happens for a reason, and that’s why this idea makes a promising premise. It suggests a type of absurdism. But a writer would have to do some pretty handsome playwrighting to make the idea work. Ms. Guha never manages to dramatize her concept. The action of the play is arbitrary and superficial. The characters are never developed and we never grow to care about them.
Glen doesn’t forget about Francesca; she’s cured him of his condition, while contracting it herself. Like the four characters’ emotional forays, there’s no reason for this. And Francesca’s forgetfulness isn’t necessary to explain the fact that she falls for each of the others. Faizi does the same thing, and she’s immune to the disorder.
Sathya Sridharan gives the show’s best performance, as Glen. He analyzes well and expresses a breadth of personality. Eric T. Miller, as Georg, and Victoria Frings, as Faizi, are believable. As Francesca, Anastasia Olowin is limited. All four try hard to be funny and their delivery of their lines is sometimes brainless.
Elena Araoz keeps the show moving allegretto. It speeds by in 90 minutes. She’s keeps her actors in the eternal present, like clowns, just as the playwright indicates. And she keeps the play clear and focused.
But there’s not much a company can do with this script. Ms. Guha has put an interesting conceit on stage, but she hasn’t honed it to suit a drama, even a comedy. Mechanics of Love is a concept thwarted in dramatic execution.
Steve Capra
September 2016

Popular posts from this blog

Anouilh's Antigone

There is a moment in Fusion Theatre’s production of Jean Anouilh’s Antigone (at Theatre Row’s Studio Theatre) when Creon says to Antigone “Don’t annihilate me with those eyes.” And indeed, Antigone’s unrelenting stare does seem to be annihilating him, as it’s been annihilating everyone. As Antigone, Eilin O’Dea motivates Creon’s line so well that it seems Anouilh has written it in response to the actress. Anouilh’s play, as this production makes clear, is an important drama. Anouilh reworked Sophocles’ play keeping the ancient Greek names and keeping the action in Thebes. The characters, however, mention tobacco, blood tests, film and cars. The dissonance reminds us that Anouilh’s message of courage and moral responsibility is ageless. Anouilh has created a raisonneur in a character called simply The Chorus. Tragedy, he tells us, “has nothing to do with melodrama”. “In tragedy, argument is gratuitous,” he says, but this is a very strange line; Antigone and Creon will soo...
Read more

A Blanket of Dust

Image
Photo by Sharon Kinsella In Richard Squires’ play A Blanket of Dust, presented at The Flea Theater by Delphi Film in association with Alfonso Ramos and Eve Pomerance, a woman, Diane, looses her husband in the 9-11 disaster. She’s convinced that the government is responsible for the catastrophe, and campaigns to uncover the conspiracy. She’s a Senator’s daughter, so the issue becomes a family affair. Years later, she becomes involved with Andrew, a book store owner active in the dissident movement. Andrew is also at odds with his parents on political issues (his father is in government but it’s not clear what his position is.) In frustration, Andrew commits suicide - he sets fire to himself - in protest. This is all pretty grim, but, well, it’s a grim world, and it’s good to see issue- committed theater.   Mr. Squires’ keeps his script as lean as the WTC towers. The characters have no identity aside from their attitudes toward the issue, aside from the sketchy romance. ...
Read more

C.S. Lewis on Stage: The Most Reluctant Convert

C.S. Lewis lived between 1898 and 1963. He’s best known for his works of fiction such as The Screwtape Letters and The Chronicles of Narnia , although his non-fiction work is arguably more important. He ranks among the foremost 20 th -century Christian apologists and theologians. Max McLean has written a terrific solo show in which he presents Lewis in his study at Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1950, C.S. Lewis on Stage: The Most Reluctant Convert . Mr. MacLean is the show’s actor, and he’s co-directed it with Ken Denison. The script details Lewis’ conversion from atheism to Christianity, delineating the transformation in discrete steps. Lewis begins with his childhood in Belfast: “Mother’s death produced in me a deeply engrained pessimism,” he tells us. And “At 13 I ceased to be a Christian. At that age one scarcely notices.” He was confirmed in The Church of Ireland “in total disbelief.” The script presents us with the structure of Lewis’ life – his time at Oxford, his enli...
Read more