Plenty of laughs in ‘Lovers’
Community Players production is funny, well-directed
PAWTUCKET — The Community Players have audiences laughing in all the right places with a well-directed production of “Lovers and Other Strangers,” written by Renée Taylor and Joseph Bologna.
Produced as a film in 1970, this stage version features a series of five vignettes taking place in different New York City apartments on a Saturday night in spring 1968. Each scene stands alone, and although the stories are unrelated, they all are about relationships.
Three directors bring different scenes to life. Christopher Margadonna opens the production with two situations involving unmarried couples. First up are Brenda and Jerry who have just met and now are at Jerry’s apartment under the pretense of making sure he didn’t leave the gas on to the oven.
No surprise, Jerry’s real purpose is a sexual encounter, and actor David Schillinger is hilariously frantic and frustrated as he tries to set the scene for seduction. As Brenda, Ashley Moore gets her share of laughs as she keeps hitting pause to quote words of wisdom from books like “Sex and the Single Girl” and the “Kamasutra.”
Scene II finds Mike, played by Kevin Thibault, banging on his fiancée’s door at 4 a.m. to talk her out of marrying him. Thibault is funny as he runs through a host of moods, from determined to pathetic, while Susan L. Perreault, as Susan, patiently but expressively observes the tirade.
Director Dan Fisher leads the next two scenes, the first of which is incongruously set in a bathroom; the set actually gets a laugh when it’s revealed. There is a party going on, and the bathroom is where Cathy and Hal have met surreptitiously to hash out their future as lovers. Actors Rebecca Tung and Rich- ard Griffin work well off each other – and off the plumbing.
Then comes the 1960s marital version of who’s the boss as independent Wilma and traditional Johnny have a bit of a power struggle. Leslie Racine Vazquez and especially Geoff White make their situation funny and subtly poignant as they work toward détente.
In all these scenes, the back and forth between the men and women is nicely played and paced. The humor is rooted in ’60s sensibilities, not the present, but the actors sell it convincingly as comedy.
The show kicks up a notch after intermission with the final, and longest, scene, directed by Tony Annicone. Sandi Nicastro and Ed Carusi pull off decent accents – and perfectly timed punch lines – as Bea and Frank, a long-married, old-school Italian-American couple who are distressed by their son Richie’s impending divorce.
Richie explains he and his wife, Joan, just aren’t happy, and Bea echoes – with comedically weary sarcasm – “They’re not happy …,” her voice trailing off.
“You think your mother and I are happy?” Frank counters, straight faced and unaware how that really isn’t a good argument. Nicastro and Carusi are excellent, and both Ron Martin as Richie and Emily VanPelt as Joan are fine as their foils.
Annicone not only directs the verbal comedy with a sure focus, he adds a couple great sight gags, including making good use of the difference in height between Richie and his Dad.
There are lots of laughs written into “Lovers and Other Strangers” and delivered by the Community Players, but not many more opportunities to get in on the fun. Final performances are Friday and Saturday, Jan. 19 and 20, at 7:30 p.m., Sunday, Jan. 21, at 2 p.m. Tickets are $18 for adults, $12 for students. For reservations, call 401-726-6860 or visit