To get tested or not to get tested? This is the dilemma faced by 30something sisters Monica and Amanda Glendenning in Doug Haverty’s captivating, compelling family dramedy Could I Have This Dance?, now getting a terrifically acted 33rd-anniversary revival at the Group Rep.

To the outside world, Monica (Anna Connelly) and Amanda (Anica Petrovic) would seem to have it made. Both are attractive, intelligent, successful businesswomen who together run Grapevine, a thriving showbiz PR firm passed down to them by their formerly vital, now debilitated mother Jeannette (Clara Rodriguez).

Monica has a long-term boyfriend who adores her, and though Amanda prefers to play the field dating much younger men on a one-night-stand basis, neither can complain about the active sex and/or love lives they lead.

What, then, could possibly be wrong with this picture?

The answer is their mother’s Huntington Disease, a debilitating nervous disorder that causes the body to (as one character puts it) “lurch around as if it were being electrocuted,” a condition which normally sets in sometime around age 50, and one which each sister has a 50-50 chance of having inherited from Mom.

Not that these odds are on Amanda’s mind this morning, not after having spent last night with the “tantalizing” Errol Watkins (Sean Babcock), the 33-year-old’s first boy toy in recent memory to be over the legal drinking age, albeit just barely.

Nor are they on 36-year-old Monica’s mind, that is until her more age-appropriate boyfriend Colin McMann (Andy Shephard), arrives at the sisters’ office with the earth-shattering news that researchers have developed a blood test capable of revealing whether or not the Huntington’s gene lurks in a person’s DNA!

Perhaps not surprisingly, Monica and Amanda’s reaction to this news is about as different as their ways of looking at love and relationships are.

Whereas Amanda, who has spent thirty-three years “putting off a life because I didn’t know if I’d have one,” is ready to take the test “now, within the hour” as far as her older sister sis concerned, ignorance is bliss. “At least,” Monica tells Amanda, “now we have hope.”

Will Amanda make good her vow to be tested? Will Monica summon up the courage to do the same? How will their decisions affect their sisterhood, their romantic coupling, and their relationships with their parents Hank (Lloyd Pedersen) and Jeannette?

These are questions guaranteed to keep audiences glued to their seats throughout Could I Have This Dance’s two-plus-hour running time, that is when the play’s more comedic moments aren’t inspiring considerable laughter amidst the family drama.

Director Kathleen R. Delaney brings out the best in a cast made up of two venerable the Group Rep vets and four exciting newcomers to the Lonny Chapman Theatre stage.

Not only do Connelly and Petrovic look like they could be real-life sisters, their sibling rivalry is about as authentic as it gets, Connelly’s tightly-wound Monica and Petrovic’s free-spirited Amanda commanding the stage with equal parts power and depth.

Shephard evokes a young George Clooney/Bradley Cooper as the handsome, sensitive, salt-of-the-earth Colin, while recent UCLA grad Babcock makes for the most charming of big-biceped himbos as recent UCLA grad Errol.

Pedersen is terrific as always as the sisters’ loving father and their mother’s devoted spouse, while Rodriguez does devastating work as a woman trapped inside a body she can no longer call her own.

Kathi Chaplar’s stylish office set and Frank McKown’s vivid lighting design are both topnotch, though it’s Shon LeBlanc’s pitch-perfect 1980s costumes (oh the memories their big shoulders and bold, bright colors evoke!) and sound designer Nick Foran’s otherworldly, Enya-esque musical underscoring are the production’s standout design stars.

Could I Have This Dance? is produced for the Group Rep by Brent Beerman. Sasha Izabela Kartman is assistant director. Dawn Halloran is stage manager. Nora Feldman is publicist.

Adeptly eschewing “Disease Of The Week” clichés for a more creative, nuanced approach, Doug Haverty’s Could I Have This Dance? is Los Angeles theater at its most affecting and effective.

The Group Rep, Lonny Chapman Theatre, 10900 Burbank Boulevard, North Hollywood. Through May 5. Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00. Sundays at 2:00.
www.thegrouprep.com

–Steven Stanley
March 29. 2024
Photos: Doug Engalla

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Tags: Doug Haverty, Los Angeles Theater Review, The Group Rep