Heart-shaped head

Tonight is Four Seasons Theatre’s second and final night of its “concert version” of Aspects of Love, with words and music by Andrew Lloyd Webber (if that was about to make you stop reading, it shouldn’t). By a concert version they mean that the production is mainly about the songs: there’s a live orchestra but minimal sets and costumes. The actors aren’t stationary but they do read from scripts, and a narrator provides the necessary transitions. The play is actually well suited to this kind of presentation: the form is closer to an opera where the songs provide most of the characterizations and plot. If you like your diagrams of love relationships to have more than three sides (and Dane101 readers’ #3 theatrical production for 2005 suggests that’s the case), you may want to check out this performance.

The theme of the play is spelled out by the first song: “Love Changes Everything.” What starts out as something resembling a farce or an ‘80s sex comedy — seventeen-year-old guy convinces an older actress to come to his villa without telling her that it’s actually the home of his uncle — becomes a more meaningful examination of, well, what the title of the play says. There’s an early reference to Cyrano de Bergerac, and this play gets into various kinds of love and the attendant emotional difficulties. Love does strange things to these people even after the thirteen years that separate the first and second acts.

The songs are a mix of “observational” type songs and those that advance the story and the complexity of the relationships between characters. The roles demand serious musical and acting talents and the cast is uniformly strong. I will say that I’m a fan of local diva (that’s diva in the original sense, not what it’s come to mean today) Tamara Norden Brognano, and was glad her character had the last major song. (Brognano’s previous credits include Mother in Four Seasons’ debut production of Ragtime and the lead in CTM’s 2001 production of Hello Dolly.) I also liked Rick Henslin’s refined manner as an aging libertine.

Use of narration helps avoid undue attention being paid to some of the more outré plot points, which would potentially detract from enjoying the musical performance. If your criteria for a successful musical include humming or whistling one of the songs on your way out, you’ll likely be satisfied courtesy of the penultimate song, “Hand Me the Wine and the Dice.” Although this was the only part of the performance where I missed the onstage action.

In the director’s notes, Tony Simotes observes that “the Broadway production was not a huge success.” There are a few things that differentiate this play from a more traditional and more marketable story. The characters don’t fall into easy types like “earnest youth” and “vivacious actress.” The protagonist, like Othello, loves not wisely but too well and doesn’t demand easy sympathy. For example, he commits a desperate act about midway through the first act that even the Phantom of the Opera might find excessive.

You don’t have the satisfying parings-off at the end like in of A Little Night Music or Much Ado About Nothing, or the next generation redeeming the matrimonial mess the previous one made like in Wuthering Heights. In the end there is uncertainty and no obvious resolution, which isn’t likely to result in The Producers kind of cash even though it is closer to real life.

All in all, very satisfying from a musical and dramatic standpoint. If you see only one musical adaptation of a David Garnett novel this year, make it this one.

Aspects of Love is being performed by Four Seasons Theatre at the Middleton Performing Arts Center, 2100 Bristol Street (north end of the high school building). According to Madstage the performance starts at 7:30 and tickets are $15. You can stop back at the location tomorrow morning and early afternoon for a pancake breakfast.