She Loves Me at Long Wharf
Gets a Lot Right and Wrong
By: Karen Isaacs - Dec 22, 2024
Long Wharf’s production of She Loves Me (running through Monday, December 30) gets a lot right; unfortunately, its missteps are a significant detraction from the overall success of the show.
To be honest, I have strong feelings for this show. It is one of my favorite shows, and I actually saw the original production when it tried out at the Schubert Theater. I’ve seen multiple productions since, including the pre-Covid Broadway revival, which I didn’t love.
The first thing I would suggest is that you not spend a lot of time reading the program, which attempts to give greater meaning to the show; yes, it is about people looking for connections and love people who are lonely, but why can’t we just enjoy a love story?
Long Wharf talks a great deal about Theater in the Community and bringing the show to different locations. But as I was sitting at The Lab at ConnCorp, in what had been a middle school gymnasium, I wondered if the cost of renting and installing the lighting and the other things that had to be done to make this a theater was cost-effective.
They’ve done it effectively, but they can’t solve some of the problems with the building itself. Though it’s modern and comfortable, the lobby’s space is awkward, and getting there can be confusing due to a one-way street. It didn’t help that one email gave the wrong address.
If you don’t know the show, it is based on a play about a Budapest perfumery and the clerks who work there in the mid-1930s. It became the film A Shop Around the Corner, starring Margaret Sullivan and James Stewart. Later, it was the Judy Garland and Van Johnson musical In the Good Old Summertime before Bock and Harnik turned it into a Broadway musical. They had already written Fiorello and went on to write Fiddler on the Roof.
The plot is quite simple and charming: Two lonely people (Amalia and Georg) correspond with each other, hoping to develop a romantic relationship; they have never met. When they are thrown together without knowing who the other is, it’s instant dislike. You can guess that despite the animosity between them, by the finale, they will have fallen in love. The subplot involves two of the store clerks, Miss Ritter and the playboy Stephen Kodaly. The question is when will she wake up and realize that she deserves better?
The actresses playing Amalia (Alicia Kaori) and Miss Ritter (Mariand Torres) are excellent, as is Felix Torrez-Ponce as the young delivery person, Arpad. Kaori’s soprano is crystal clear, though, at the beginning, her Amalia seems too meek. She is anything but. Torres is both funny and touching in “A Trip to the Library,” and Torrez-Ponce totally captures Arpad with “Try Me.”
But there are some serious missteps as well.
The first is Julius Thomas III as Georg. He just isn’t right; he looks too young and, rather than being pompous, he seems immature. We never quite understand or feel empathy for him. His rendition of the title song is excellent, but I felt he was in a different show than the other characters.
Artistic Director Jacob G. Padrón has managed the awkward space well overall. The audience is on opposite sides, facing each other; the actors often need excessive movement to make sure that both sides of the audience can see what is going on.
Because of the setup, the actors sometimes move for no purpose except to face each side of the audience. The staging of several numbers did not work. “Days Gone By” – one of my favorite songs sung by the shop owner Zoltan Maraczek (Raphael Nash Thompson) did not capture the nostalgia nor the Viennese lilt; Sipos’s, (the meek manner clerk), “Pespective” was staged too boldly for the character. Graham Stevens, as the lady’s man, Steven Kodaly, lacked panache.
The show has excellent new orchestrations by Andy Einhorn that are excellent. The small ensemble with a cello, a violin, and an accordion gave the right feel for the period. It sounds romantic.
The choreography by Chris Bell, scenic design by Emmie Finckel, and sound design by Alex Neumann was fine, though, from my side seat, I could not see into the shop.
Yes, this place this piece takes place in Budapest, Hungary, in the 1930s. Those of us who know our history know that the specter of Hitler and what is to come hangs over it, but he doesn’t need to be meant to be brought in. Let us live out the fairytale. Padrón makes an early attempt to force us to remember this when, at the very beginning, Maraczek turns on a radio news broadcast that mentions a European alliance and Hitler. But it is quickly forgotten.
I said to avoid reading the program, which attempts to give dark meanings to the choices. These seem forced. Also forced was the trigger warning in the lobby that the show deals with depression and suicide.
For tickets, contact LongWharf.org.
This content is courtesy of Shore Publications and Zip06.com.