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review Do you like Billy Joel? If you do, then you'll like Joe DiPietro. Just as Joel pens Top 40 hits with Tin Pin Alley roots, DiPietro pens contemporary comedies with that old Broadway feel. They're commercial, they're familiar, and they're kind of like Billy Joel singles: if you just nod along, they seem pretty good. But if you like to think deeply, you'll want to pass on DiPietro's latest confection, "The Kiss at City Hall" — now getting its West Coast premiere at the Pasadena Playhouse. Essentially "I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change" without the music, "The Kiss at City Hall" is not quite what the press release claims. It's less a stylized dissection of love through the prism of Robert Doisneau's famed 1950 photograph Le Baiser de l'Hotel de Ville than a mundane romantic comedy about two couples in their thirties at the end of the 1990s. And its storyline comes out of the mid-1960s. I kid you not, this is the setup: Meet Tony (Brian Cousins) and his best friend Dave (Paul Provenza). They live in a glamorous New York apartment. Meet Julie (Robin Riker); she's a career girl who works in advertising. Meet Phoenix (Sybyl Walker); she's a free spirit with a liberal arts degree. Man, is she a hippie! Tony loves Julie, but Tony won't commit; Dave digs Phoenix, but he's not sure it's love. What are they all gonna do? (And where's Ted Bessell?) Like Neil Simon, DiPietro tends to reject emotional exploration in favor of laffs. There's an irritating example in the play's second scene, where Cousins begins a monologue about the degeneration of love. It's some fine writing, but then silly old Mrs. Valentini (Magda Harout), the wacky housekeeper who don't speaka da Englis, shatters a cell phone. Blackout! You wish DiPietro wouldn't thwart the humanity of his characters. But unlike Neil Simon, DiPietro tackles serious issues — abortion is at the heart of this romantic comedy — and he uses multiple narratives to tell his tale. His fine Act 2 monologues for Dave and Mrs. Valentini hint at the playwright he could quickly become. And that artistic growth can't come too soon. Presumably, we're supposed to find Dave and Tony charming in an ESPN kind of way — but they're jerks who won't commit, plain and simple. We're supposed to accept Julie and Phoenix as idealistic heroines — but any audience member can see their narcissism. It's all very strange. (Speaking of strange, why does DiPietro write so fearfully of the West? In his earlier hit comedy, "Over the River and Through the Woods", the big crisis involves a move to Seattle. In "The Kiss at City Hall", the big crisis involves a move to California — and the other obstacle is a woman named Phoenix Arizona. It's like he just learned the Dodgers aren't coming back.) The cast does well with thin material, especially Harout (the family matriarch from "Nine Armenians") and the charming Riker, who handles most of the script's refractive monologues. Provenza, the stand-up comic who was so sadly miscast on "Northern Exposure", proves a capable stage actor. But the play is pure Billy Joel, and the wisecracking DiPietro could take a valuable tip from him: leave a tender moment alone. "The Kiss at City Hall", Tues.-Sun. thru Feb. 20 at the Pasadena Playhouse, 39 S. El Molino Ave., Pasadena. $13.50-42.50, $10 off with Telecharge code number listed in LA WEEKLY ads. Saturday curtains @ 5 & 9pm. 800.233.3123. Copyright © 2000 The Write Word, Inc. All rights reserved. |