Room for More

I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change

Presented by The Boiler Room Theatre

Through May 19 at The Factory at Franklin

For tickets, call 794-7744

Just about a year ago, a snappy musical revue called Personals enjoyed an extended run at Bongo Java After Hours Theatre. By and large, the production featured the talents of refugee members of Franklin’s Pull-Tight Players, headed up by Jamey Green, who both staged the show and served as musical director.

This gifted, close-knit group is still together, only now they’ve got their own performance space, The Boiler Room Theatre, located in a building adjacent to The Factory entertainment and shopping complex in Franklin. Adroitly marshaling personal and corporate patronage, the company has gutted and refurbished what was literally the boiler room on the factory grounds. (For those who have wondered, the original factory manufactured, at one time or the other, ovens and bedding.) They grabbed some 120 comfy seats from an old synagogue, shaped up the brick walls, installed a small but useful stage and some major-league lighting equipment, and voilà!—instant functional intimate venue.

There’s still some work to be done backstage, but no matter. Boiler Room has successfully inaugurated its modest but impressive new surroundings with a polished and highly professional production of Joe DiPietro and Jimmy Roberts’ I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change, a hit musical that has been playing off-Broadway for about five years now. (Tennessee Repertory Theatre recently announced plans to present this show as part of its mainstage lineup in spring 2002.)

Without question, I Love You is a first cousin to Personals. The latter probed the difficulties of relationships in the modern world; the former extends the concept and takes more or less generic singles and couples through meeting, dating, romance, marriage, parenthood, and growing old. Once again, Green is in charge. The production—a Nashville-area premiere—is spirited, well-paced, cleanly directed, and features four undeniably talented performers who act, sing, and dance (just a little, anyway) with commitment, purpose, and style.

Sure, the scenarios are a little lightweight and smirking—comparisons have been made to Seinfeld—but there’s a healthy-enough amount of legitimate, sophisticated humor here as well, all based on the shock of recognition of ourselves and our uncertain interpersonal lives. The music is best described as Broadway pop—nothing too radical or surprising—but it’s pleasant throughout and occasionally outright moving. And save for a little tentativeness in the between-scene interludes, Green’s piano playing is deft, colorful, and creative.

Of course, you can’t pull off stuff like this without top-flight actor-singers. I Love You has got ’em. Paul Cox and Lewis Kempfer are the guys. They’re not great singers, but they’re certainly very good, and both know how to sell a Broadway tune, which in some ways is even better than simply having raw vocal skills. Cox solos ably in “The Baby Song,” Kempfer in “Shouldn’t I Be Less in Love With You?” and both garner chuckles with the requisite male duet, “Why? ’Cause I’m a Guy.”

The ladies are perfect foils for their belching, scratching counterparts. Cathy Motley uses her opera-trained soprano beautifully in the solo “I Will Be Loved Tonight” and leads the cast in the tongue-in-cheek angst of “He Called Me.” Her acting is solid too, though she occasionally dips into some slightly annoying cliché characterizations. Still, the lady’s got great gams, and she’s an attractive force onstage.

Lisa Gillespie, in her own quiet way, trumps ’em all, though. Gillespie—who choreographed Personals—has a classic musical-comedy alto, which she uses to terrific effect throughout, especially in her solo, “Always a Bridesmaid.” She’s the straw that stirs the drink in other numbers as well, and she displays her notable versatility in “I Can Live With That,” a duet with Cox that functions as a warmhearted character study of aging widow and widower who meet at a funeral parlor.

Mostly, this production epitomizes relentless energy and an obvious dedication to the fledgling parent company’s mission: classy musical theater. To that end, Boiler Room has announced a schedule of four more productions, which will be presented throughout the year, including a six-week run of A Chorus Line in mid- to late summer. In addition to its regular season, the group is also gearing up to present children’s theater, late-night cabaret fare, and workshop treatments of original plays and musicals.

Those theatrical rumblings you hear are coming from the south of town, where a small band of musical-comedy kids has a new playground. Good for them.

On the run

The Sweetwater Theatre Co., based in Louisville, came to Bongo Java After Hours Theatre last weekend to perform an original drama called Abilene. Written and directed by company co-founder Greg Mercer, the play concerns four escaped convicts and their decidedly pathos-driven interaction while on the lam. There’s a bit of a lowdown Sam Shepard feel to the script—scenes are even rewound and played over again, a technique Shepard experimented with—and the characters are angry, screwed-up white-trash fellas who eventually destroy each other.