Like Love

Like Love, a chamber musical with book and lyrics by Barry Jay Kaplan and music by Lewis Flinn, gives us a wonderful singer/actress/beauty, Emily Swallow; Jon Patrick Walker, a fine singer with the worst haircut on the NY stage, and the lively Danielle Ferland as the narrator/symbol of "The Spirit of Love."

A chance meeting, sex, no strings. Does it surprise you that strings start to attach themselves? Most of the play is sung dialogue rather than songs, and the music all fits, but the basis of the show seems false -- to keep it all anonymous. Their romantic relationship, with neither one attached to someone else, is too good for that. Actually, the two leads do not seem to be a match; he comes across as a Dead End Kid with a lackadaisical style which seems to fit film acting, and she seems to come from a different crust -- a touch of upper, and a performance more appropriate for the stage. But the ways of love are unpredictable, aren't they? So there are few surprises, they all sing well, and, as directed by Lisa Rothe, it's all rather pleasant.