MELANCHOLY PLAY


Quirkiness and whimsy meet operatic grandiosity meet Sarah Ruhl’s unique take on love and life at Hollywood’s Madnani Theatre in Melancholy Play, a terrific talent showcase for some of LA’s brightest young theatrical stars and as effervescent a comedic treat as any Ruhl lover could wish for.

The seemingly incurable melancholic who gives Ruhl’s 2002 comedy its name is Tilly (Madeleine Ince), but don’t go thinking that the deep and lingering sadness she’s been feeling since pretty much forever is any kind of turnoff to those around her.

Indeed it’s Tilly’s profound melancholy that has her European-accented therapist Lorenzo (Taubert Nadalini), intellectual tailor Frank (Kevin Shewey), and physicist-turned-hairdresser Frances (Anna Mintzer) waxing poetic about the passionate love each of them feels for her.

Lorenzo finds himself revealing painful things about his past he’s never told a soul. Frank hears Tilly comparing him to an almond she’d like to crack open with a mallet the better to see what’s inside. Frances gushes over Tilly’s lush long locks as she gives her luxuriant tresses a trim. Even Frances’s longtime lesbian lover Joan (Jasmin Park), who enters the proceedings about a third of the way though, can’t help but fall for Tilly once she’s met her.

Cellist Julian (Isaac W. Jay), meanwhile, observes the goings-on without uttering a word though he does provide musical underscoring whenever emotions call for it, and never more so than on Tilly’s birthday when a game of Duck, Duck, Goose suddenly fills our hapless heroine with so much joy, her melancholy becomes a thing of the past and her amorous entourage find themselves unable to cope with the change.

If all this sounds a bit bizarre, it is, and if all this sound more than a bit like what audiences have come to expect from the playwright who followed up Melancholy Play with The Clean House, Eurydice, and Dead Man’s Cell Phone, then you’d be right there too as Ruhl combines magic realism, poetic eloquence, and a celebration of sadness-as-a-virtue to exhilarating effect.

 Director Katharine McDonough has her cast leaning into the absurdity by going big, bigger, and bigger still and the result is as joyous and enchanting as a play that describes itself as “melancholy” could possibly be.

 Ince’s Tilly wears her every emotion on her sleeve, and then some, in a star turn as fearless as it is fabulous, and as many times as I’ve seen Nadalini light up a stage, he’s never flamed as flamboyantly as he does as extravagantly ebullient Lorenzo.

Shewey shines too as die-hard romantic Frank, Mintzer is as gorgeous as she is touching when Frances faces an existential crisis, Park serves splendidly as the sensible counterpart to the romantic madness around her, and in an inspired directorial/acting touch, Jay plays air cello to perfection while maintaining a straight face throughout. (Sound designer Nadalini composed the evocative prerecorded cello score performed by Juan Pedro Torresanti and bow-synced by Jay.)

A comfy green sofa and an elegant-looking large movable horizontal picture frame are all the scenic design that’s needed to give Melancholy Play a classy look on the Madnani stage, one complemented by Gregory Crafts’ carefully thought-out lighting design and what are presumably the cast’s own costume choices.

Add to this the musical talents of Nadalini (on keyboard), McDonough (who composed a melody to Ruhl’s lyrics on “I’m Happy”), and Mintzer (who wrote the music and cello intro to Ruhl’s lyrics on “Melancholy Tilly”) and you’ve got a production that really ought to be revived for an extended run at a later date.

Melancholy Play is produced for Contempo Productions by McDonough, Nadalini, and Shewey.

I’ve now seen a grand total of six Sarah Ruhl plays, and if Melancholy Play isn’t the most famous or the most easily accessible of the bunch, it’s about as entertaining as a Sarah Ruhl play can get. And with as Grade-A a cast as L.A. has to offer and Katharine McDonough revealing herself to be as fine a director as she is an incandescent musical theater triple-threat, it makes for a bona fide thought-provoking, laugh-out-loud hit.

Madnani Theater, 6760 Lexington Ave, Hollywood. Through June 28. Tuesday June 16 at 6:30, Saturday June 20 at 10:30, Tuesday June 23 at 9:00, Thursday June 25 at 10:00, and Sunday June 28 at 7:00.
https://www.instagram.com/contempoproductions

–Steven Stanley
June 12, 2026jo
Photos: Hope Lauren

Visit www.theatreinla.com/nowplayingrs.php for a review roundup of what’s now playing in theaters around Los Angeles.

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