A rather nonsensical premise is all that’s holding back Sheila Callaghan’s Elevada from being the unqualified smash romantic comedy it sets out to be. Even so, romcom lovers like this reviewer will find themselves captivated by its terrifically acted, stunningly designed Chance Theater West Coast Premiere.

Callaghan’s four-hander may be formulaic in construction, but it’s a formula that’s worked for Meg Ryan (and Tom Hanks and Billy Crystal) and Julia Roberts (and Richard Gere and Hugh Grant) and it works for Gracie Lacey’s Ramona and Ahmed T. Brooks’s Khalil as well.

 To begin with, there’s the meet-cute, which has Ramona out on her seventh set-up date, this time with Khalil, who doesn’t even realize he’s been set up till well into the twosome’s getting-to-know-you chitchat over red zin and Coke.

Ramona has a hard-to-describe desk job and Khalil has apparently made a bundle in the dotcom biz, but what really matters is that she is dying of cancer and he is about to sell the exclusive use of his identity to a corporation for three years. (Say what?)

 If Ramona has good reason to back off from a potential relationship even before one has started, Khalil’s is so far from the realm of plausibility (neither he nor Callaghan even tries to explain what precisely his life will be like when, in his words, “I cease to exist as a person”) as to almost sabotage Elevada before it gets started.

Fortunately, despite the absurdity of this premise, Ramona and Khalil prove engaging characters, quirky and charming and flawed, and each one deserving of a better fate than the one that seems in store for them.

 Like any romcom worth its salt, Elevada gives each of its romantic protagonists an eccentric best chum, in Ramona’s case her caring but overbearing sister June (Lola Kelly) and in Khalil’s, a wacky roommate named Owen (Jonathan Fisher) who’s got his own definition of what a recovering addict can and cannot ingest, a B-plot duo who just might be as made-for-each-other as their A-plot besties.

And as anyone who’s watched any of those Meg-Tom-Billy-Julia-Richard-Hugh romcoms can tell you, the road to a happy ending must involve at least one major eleventh-hour stumbling block, and here too Elevada stints not a bit, benefiting too from Callaghan’s gift for creating intelligent, multi-layered characters who speak in smart, snappy phrases.

 Director Nicholas C. Avila and his crackerjack cast skillfully navigate Callaghan’s mix of reality and whimsy in addition to executing some of the most inventively staged scene-and-costume changes I’ve seen.

Lacey makes for an utterly captivating Ramona even at her most exasperating. Brooks’s variation on the techie nerd is equally charming and un-cliched. Kelly’s June is as tightly wound as her chignon, making it even more of a treat when she lets her hair down both literally and figuratively. Fisher is a force of nature as Owen, a slacker with a unique take on sobriety and a heart of gold.

Elevating Elevada (the term comes from a tango move in which the feet are kept high above the ground) throughout its two-hour-fifteen-minute running time (it could use a quarter-hour trim) is one of Chance Theater’s most spectacular production designs ever.

Scenic designer Kristin Campbell’s multi-angled urban set conceals multiple wonders including a functioning barbecue. David Aaron Hernandez’s lighting is as stunning as it gets. Vincent Olivieri’s expert tango-based sound design, Megan Hill’s nifty properties, and Adriana Lambarri’s just-right costumes are winners as well. (If only Ramona’s bald cap weren’t so obviously fake.)

 Above all there is Shawn Duan’s supremely inventive projection design, one that not only establishes locale but creates a magic of its own.

Oh, and choreographer Hazel Clarke gives Ramona and Khalil one gorgeous tango with which to seduce each other (and us in the bargain).

Jocelyn L. Buckner is dramatrug. Jazmin Pollinger is stage manager.

I wish that Sheila Callaghan had given Khalil a more credible reason to “vanish.” That quibble aside, Elevada is about as entertaining and satisfying as romcoms get.

Chance Theater, 5522 E. La Palma Ave., Anaheim Hills.
www.chancetheater.com

–Steven Stanley
May 20, 2018
Photos: Chance Theater

Tags: Chance Theater, Orange County Theater Review, Sheila Callaghan