Where Living on Love fits into Asolo Rep’s five-year exploration of the American character is a mystery. To say that the two sets of major characters pursue the American dream (whether as successful diva and conductor or as major writers) is less accurate than to say silly pap will draw in more bourgeois buyers of “culture” (that is, tickets) to see a cheap-laugh-a-minute comedy than will a classic one with substance. Living on Love departs from the first comic type in one significant way at Asolo Rep: its production is not cheap, but lavish. The velvet curtain rises and reveals a 1957 sumptuously furnished (including piano and decoupaged record-player cabinet), red-walled, grand portrait-filled New York penthouse apartment. It’s a set the audience applauds before it proves suitable to the action that takes place in it; the place looks pretty enough to whistle at. It’s well kept by two mincing, formally dressed servants Robert and Eric, like Twiddle Drum and Twiddle Dee. The surprise they reveal at the end is no surprise at all. The principals are Raquel De Angelis (lovely Rebecca Caine, of glorious voice), who has long been away from her conductor husband Vito. He apparently has had eyes for more than one woman during the professional absences that have usually kept the couple apart. (Vito, as interpreted by Karl Hamilton, is continually silly in patterned pajamas or the like and given to shaking his hair like a movie Italian other than a gangster.) Their careers are waning. They play games of oneupsmanship while trying to make each other jealous. Josh James as Robert Samson, hired by Vito to help him “ghost” his autobiography, can’t get him beyond two lines about his life. No wonder he switches to working for Raquel; she can go on and on about her (false) adventures and triumphs. Besides, even though she’s significantly older, he finds her attractive. Isn’t it, though, like how Patrick felt about his Auntie Mame--who dressed and swept down a curved stairway just like Raquel? Concern with age doesn’t stop how Vito flirts with Iris Peabody, the young woman he next hired to write his story. He impresses her--but with love? As for her attractiveness, Ally Farzetta quickly matures from plain and unprepossessing into a sharp, queenly, pretty young woman. Guess who wind up with each other? Without the directorial tricks Peter Amster knows so well how to use, much of the comic in Asolo’s Lost in Love would be lost in the play’s mediocrity. Luckily, Amster also has experience with opera, so that his direction of Rebecca Caine’s excellent occasional operatic outbursts is a boon to music lovers. Still, the play—even with music--seems more suitable to a dinner theater (especially one that camps nearly forgotten Viennese operettas) or what used to be known as a matinee comedy, with a so-sweet dessert taken up by Ladies Who Lunch after their meal. Come to think of it, Asolo Rep’s opening night gala buffet included well-frosted cup cakes and pink-swirled lollipops. Flashes of pretty, tasty sweetness from empty calories.
