An alternate cast prove the wrong trio of actors to make Alexandra Gersten-Vassilaros’ offbeat comic drama My Thing Of Love come to explosive life in its Sixty-Six Theater Co. debut under Paul Rush’s direction.

Alessandra Marandola and Shainu Bala play married-with-children Elly and Nick, whose post-breakfast conversation this morning suggests that all might not be sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows in their suburban American home.

Take for instance Elly’s recounting of a “joke” a “transvestite” has recently told her. (“If you want to know if a man is lying to you, look him deeply in the eyes and if his mouth is moving, he’s lying.”)

Since Jack’s mouth is moving, could that mean he’s got something to lie about? Something Elly can smell on him? Or rather someone? Someone he’s been with? Someone he’s written about in a diary that he might just have left carelessly lying about?

To make matters worse, who should show up on Elly’s doorstep after Jack has headed off to work with promises of fidelity but the woman he has indeed been lying about, a bubblehead named Kelly (Luana Fitzgerald) who’s not about to play second fiddle to her boyfriend’s wife.

With the right three actors, Gersten-Vassilaro’s dialog can ignite the stage.

Here, it merely reveals the potential it has for greatness.

The miscast Marandola and Bala have TV-lead ready looks and moments where things click, but they read too young and rom-com attractive for the characters Gersten-Vassilaros has written, and their performances only scratch the surface of force-of-nature nutcase Elly and the adulterous sleazeball she had the bad sense to marry.

(A perfectly cast Laurie Metcalf and Bill Irwin, then 40 and 45, played Elly and Jack on Broadway, and main cast members Liz Greig and Nick Dubberley look to be more suited for the roles than their alternates.)

As for the object of Jack’s adulterous affections, since English is clearly Fitzgerald’s second language, the colloquial dialog Gersten-Vassilaros has given Kelly rings false without a native speaker’s natural ease in matters of stress, rhythm, and intonation.

Only the fabulous Thomas Schofield (perhaps not coincidentally the only cast member not sharing his role) comes across unscathed as Mr. Garn, the weirdest, wildest, and wackiest elementary school guidance counselor ever to light up a stage, albeit far too briefly.

Rush’s production design, Paul Timmel’s lighting, and Trevor Reece’s sound design do the job, though properties design missteps like a “cordless” phone that’s clearly not cordless and a blank-page-filled diary prove distracting.

Casting is by Thomas Sullivan and Rush. Brittany Lewis normally appears as Kelly.

My Thing Of Love is produced by Marian Tomas Griffin, Carina Haller, Greig, Dubberley, Hilty Bowen, and Eddie Alfano.

Marandola, Bala, and Fitzgerald deserve credit for going on gamely despite presumably less rehearsal time than the production’s main-cast stars. Still, those in attendance at Thursday’s unpublicized second-cast performance would be hard-pressed to see why the Chicago Tribune called My Thing Of Love “the kind of play that makes us want to go to the theatre.”

Marilyn Monroe Theatre, 7936 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood.
www.sixtysixtheater.com

–Steven Stanley
May 9, 2019

Tags: Alexandra Gersten-Vassilaros, Los Angeles Theater Review, Marilyn Monroe Theatre, Sixty-Six Theater Co.