Just in time for Valentine’s Day, Milwaukee’s Skylight Music Theater comes to the rescue with a perfect date-night treat: the wacky musical revue, I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change.” The show, written in 1996 by Joe DePietro, takes audiences through a series of loosely linked vignettes. Most of them only last for 10 minutes or so as they follow the rituals of the mating dance. The show progresses from first date through marriage, having kids, and pick-up tips for singles over 75. In the hands of veteran director Pam Kriger, the show flows as smooth as buttermilk through the vignettes. The near-seamless revue is more of a juggling act than one may realize, with the show’s four actors racing offstage, only to re-emerge moments later in a different costume and a new character. Plus, the actors have to navigate Designer Rick Rasmussen’s stair-step set. This would be a challenge in any circumstances, never-mind that the women have to glide quickly and effortlessly in high heels. Rasmussen wisely saves a bit of the set’s glittery possibilities until the final scene, which is a proper wrap-up for two hours of hilarious fun. Prior to arriving in Milwaukee, I Love You played 5,000 performances in New York, becoming the second-longest running Off-Broadway show in history. Its universal theme is demonstrated by the fact that I Love You has been translated into 17 foreign languages. While Director Pam Kriger pulls the strings offstage, the center of attention onstage is music director Jack Forbes Wilson. His piano dominates center stage, and he’s often called on to sing with the actors or otherwise toss in a line or two. The super-charged Wilson makes the show even more fun to watch than it otherwise would be. His attention is glued to the action onstage, even while he is expertly providing musical accompaniment. The handful of musicians located further upstage do a nice job, too. Which brings us to the cast. The foursome segueing from one character to another allows the audience to see various glimpses of their acting chops. The cast consists of two men and two women, although the “couples” in each vignette rotate between the four actors. Two of them, Doug Clemons and Karen Estrada, are musical-comedy pros. They can belt out a song and stay on pitch, an accomplishment which sometimes eludes actor Rick Pendzich. However, Pendzich is often given the show’s funniest lines, which he delivers with excellent comic timing. Kathryn Hausman is a veteran of many locally staged musical comedies, but she was bit more reserved at the performance attended by this reviewer.
It's a good bet that each audience member will walk away with his or her own “favorite” vignettes. In the first act, mine included a first date at the movies (with hilarious mood swings by Rick Pendzich), and a dating class for singles over 30. Some tinkering with the script (at the author’s permission) sets the vignette “Scared Straight” at Wisconsin’s Waupun Correctional Facility. Pendzich, again, is a riot to watch. He’s a “lifer” who conducts the dating class with techniques that scare the bejesus out of the quivering “students” (Doug Clemons and Kathryn Hausman).
More pleasures await in Act II, which opens with Karen Estrada’s hilarious “Always a Bridesmaid.” Thanks to costume designer Kristy Lee Hall, Estrada sings of her closet full of bridesmaid’s dresses while wearing perhaps the most hideous-looking of them all: a multi-tiered, fuscia-colored cocktail dress, complete with a pink cowboy hat and matching pink boots.
For a fun evening that celebrates various stages of love, I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change at Skylight may be the perfect treat for mid-February.
