You’ll love ‘I Love You’ at New Castle

By Milan Paurich

NEW CASTLE, Pa. — Although it opened Off-Broadway in 1996, Joe DiPietro and Jimmy Roberts’ “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change” feels a bit like a late-1960s ABC-TV show. Make that two late ’60s ABC TV shows: “That’s Life” (an innovative Robert Morse-E.J. Peaker musical comedy about a pair of perky young newlyweds) and “Love American Style” (sitcommy vignettes about heterosexual mating rituals).

That cozy, “haven’t-I-seen-this-somewhere-before?” nostalgic factor — even if you weren’t old enough to remember either program — probably explains why “I Love You” currently holds the record as the second-longest- running off-B’way musical in history. (It finally closed in 2008 after racking up 5,003 performances; only “The Fantasticks” has it beat.)

Determinedly middle-brow and so chockablock with snappy punchlines you can practically hear a laugh track in the background, DiPietro and Roberts’ inoffensive trifle is catnip for musical theater fans who find Stephen Sondheim too challenging and think “Tony and Tina’s Wedding” is profound.

Director Paula R. Ferguson’s snappily paced and perfectly amiable production of “I Love You” that opened to an SRO house at the New Castle Playhouse’s Annex Theater on Friday night certainly delivers the comfort-food goods if the wildly effusive reaction of the Annex’s audience is any indication.

Blessed with four gifted, immensely appealing performers who work their collective tookus off, Ferguson and Company make a good case for the sustained durability of a show that — truth be told — isn’t anything special.

A loosely threaded amalgam of comedy skits detailing the heedless pursuit of love, relationships, marriage, etc. in contemporary America, DiPietro’s serviceable, connect-the-dots book could almost be described as nonlinear.

Characters change from scene to scene, and the actors all play multiple roles.

Accordingly, Connie Rodgers, Stacy Anderson, Stefan Lingenfelter and Jeff Carey are listed only as “Woman #1” and “#2” and “Man #1” and “#2” in the playbill. Fortunately, that’s not as confusing as it sounds.

First dates, weddings, child-rearing and even widowhood are all exhaustively tackled, as are a slew of hoary “Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus” cliches (e.g., guys dig action movies, and the opposite sex prefers chick flicks). If there’s precious little that’s genuinely fresh or inspired here, DiPietro’s lyrics occasionally surprise with stray glimmers of wit and, dare I say it?, sophistication.

Lingenfelter and Anderson’s “Marriage Tango” in Act Two is a drolly amusing examination of just how difficult it is for a married couple — particularly one saddled with kids, mortgages, et al — to find a little down time to, y’know, get their groove on. (Molly Galano’s athletic tango choreography is spot-on.)

Even moldy jokes about ugly bridesmaid gowns and guys who promise to call but don’t supply major guffaws thanks to, respectively, Anderson and Rodgers’ crackerjack comic timing and boundless enthusiasm. The teddy bear-like Carey performs similar miracles for “The Baby Song,” a borderline hackneyed ditty about overzealous parenting that he single-handedly redeems and turns into one of the evening’s comic treasures.

My favorite musical numbers, however, were the most heartfelt and irony-free. “I Will Be Loved Tonight” and “Shouldn’t I Be Less in Love With You?” are beautifully, movingly sung by Rodgers and Lingenfelter. They help bring a welcome dose of emotional gravity to a show that’s otherwise pure bubblegum and cotton candy.

Music director/pianist Ed Phillips does yeoman work, as do costume coordinators Helen-Marie Gould and Pam Haskell who insure that the hard-working cast makes it through their frequent, and frenetic, costume changes without misplacing a stitch of clothing or missing a beat. With 20-plus scenes, that couldn’t have been easy.

X“I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change” runs through Nov. 1 at the New Castle Playhouse Annex. For tickets or additional information, call (424) 654-3437.