Rocky Mountain News / Colorado Springs Gazette / ArtSpeak / CU-CS Scribe / A Critic on the Critics
By Thom Wise / Rocky Mountain News, September. 5, 1997. Copyright 1997 The Rocky Mountain News
Mounting this production of All About Love took some courage.
That, by itself, doesn't make it a strong production, but you've got to give Theatreworks credit.
All About Love is a musical adaptation of Plato's Symposium, where six gay or bisexual men spend the evening talking about love. Since Plato's work wasn't originally written as a play, it would be more accurate to describe this version as an intellectual discussion or, as the program states, a dramatic conversation - with a few songs thrown in for good measure.
Each man tries to explain his thoughts on love. (Naturally, they all have different opinions.) Then each gets a song to underscore his thoughts on the subject.
So why is this show courageous? Because these men are on stage in the center of family-values land - Colorado Springs - dancing and kissing and talking about loving other men. At on point, it's mentioned that there are "all these damn religious groups promoting abstinence." Call me a fool, but this seems gutsy - considering the surrounding landscape.
In actuality, most of the discussion is universal. The men speak endlessly about the power of love, and do so with a passion that anyone could relate to. Does this sound familiar: Love makes you do crazy things; love heals loneliness; and those who harken to the call of love are blessed.
The setting for these lofty discussions has been updated to 1930 New York, with a glib Cole Porter feeling. The martinis pour, the white baby grand piano is off to one side, and the men are all in tuxedos.
Aristophanes (Charles Schnetzer) gets a plum speech with his discussion of hermaphrodites, in which he uses a cheese ball to illustrate his opinion. It's hysterical, but not printable.
The host of the evening, Agathon (Jack Ward Jr.) gets one of the show's better songs, This Is Love. In general, all the tunes are nicely orchestrated fluff whose only purpose is to move the story along.
None of the voices is strong, and most of the choreography is simple but trite. However, this play is more about words than actions.
With the entrance of Diotima (Jana Ross) and Alcibiades (Richard Ortiz), the discussions get even more long-winded. Diotima has the love of Socrates (Melvin Grier) and her arrival adds a new dimension: That love is really just a spirit, never arriving but always on the way.
Another well-made point is that love of the body is nothing compared to love of the soul.
But by its very nature, all of this talk about love is fruitless, because there is no right or wrong. Love is a mystery. And All About Love proves the point that talk is cheap.
By Jeremy Simon / Colorado Springs Gazette, September 5, 1997. Copyright 1997 The Colorado Springs Gazette
Theatreworks' production of "All About Love" must have been fun to direct.
Take the premise and philosophy of Plato's "Symposium," throw it into early 20th century Manhattan, and add some Gershwinesque music and the sort of camp and circumstance you'd get if Neil Simon had directed the gay fave "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert."
It's a situation pregnant with possibility and Theatreworks runs with it in this uneven but innovative and entertaining musical, directed and co-written by Murray Ross. Mark Arnest (Gazette theater critic) wrote the music, lyrics and some dialogue, and his wife, Lauren Arnest also assisted with the script.
Written more than 2,000 years ago, "Symposium" is an account of a drinking party in which each man present must give a speech praising love.
I might not want to see Ayn Rand's or some similarly intense philosopher's work on stage, but Plato's arguments - composed as lively, confrontational dialogue - are taut and offer instant revelation, though perhaps not instant enough for the 100-minute play.
The rapport between the character galvanizes the first half of the play. They're all gay and young with the exception of Socrates (he's gay and old), and the flirtation and witticisms that fly about keep the play moving.
Ricky Pfohl as Phaedrus leads the way: Every move and word from Phaedrus elicits laughs. As he proved in Theatreworks' previous play, "A Midsummer Night's Dream," he's a born ham. He accompanies one song with an unexpected tap-dance routine, imperfect but charming and welcome.
As Aristophanes, Charles Schnetzer also delights in word and action, especially in a sequence in which he illustrates his argument with a cocktail-party cheeseball as a much-abused prop.
Midway through, with the entrance of Socrates' mentor Diotima (Jana Ross), the dialogue gets increasingly hung up on dense arguments, and the easy flow is interrupted. Through no fault of Diotima herself (blame Plato, if you must: he obviously wasn't thinking Broadway), these sequences were somewhat less engaging.
Ross possesses an excellent operatic voice, but the lyrics were hard to follow.
Near the end, a besotted Alcibiades (Richard Ortiz) crashes the party, and the play again shifts, into love-triangle mode.
Alcibiades loves Socrates but is routinely humiliated by Socrates' irrefutably logical arguments.
Socrates and Agathon are already paired up, so the last 20 minutes are full of seduction, jealousy and rage as Alcibiades reluctantly gives a speech praising Socrates.
Arnest's music beautifully hops around the musical styles of early American theater. Some of his songs could be dropped whole into a Broadway musical, which may speak as much for Broadway musicals as for the compositions themselves.
His presence on stage, though, is bizarre. Just about all the music is prerecorded, and Arnest sits on a small riser just behind the action, adding only light piano flourishes.
In Dwire Hall's small space, he doesn't do enough to justify the distraction of an extra person on stage.
The set is in-the-round, as if the audience members on the perimeter are peering through the walls of a living room. This presents fewer problems than I'd thought it would: Because of the actors' constant movement, I was rarely bothered that someone's back was often turned toward me.
Sound problems plagued the opening-night performance. There seemed to be no adjustment for the volume of each singer's voice: Sometimes the music overwhelmed the singer, other times the singer overwhelmed the music. A few missed cues and garbled lines can be blamed on opening night jitters.
Theatreworks says the musical isn't suitable for children under 12, and if I were a parent, I wouldn't take a teenager either unless I was prepared to do some serious blushing.
The dialogue and eroticism would elicit at the very least a PG-13 rating, maybe an R.
By David Sckolnik / KCME Radio ArtSpeak, September 6 & 9, 1997
Even if you do your homework - read the previews in the papers, study Plato's dialogues, talk to those who have already seen it - there's no way to come prepared for the experience that is "All About Love," Theatreworks' new creation now playing at the Dwire Theater on the UCCS Campus. And this is a good thing.
Its essential elements, by necessity derivative- the theatrical adaptation of Plato's wordy but insightful Symposium, a Broadway inspired musical score and a 1930s Manhattan penthouse re-setting- combine to create something that is utterly new and creative.
On the surface, there's a good argument to be made that we are witness to the sequel of Mel Brooks' classic movie comedy, "The Producers" - the 1968 romp that was based upon a scheme to make millions by selling thousands of percent of investment capital for a Broadway musical named Springtime for Hitler, designed by its creators to utterly fail.
The creative idea here- "let's take one of those old boring Greek essays, set it to music in the style of Cole Porter and LLoyd Webber in a penthouse and get a bunch of gay guys to act it out." That this is superficially silly is without a doubt true. Even the host of the evening's festivities, old Socrates himself, would have to agree.
But is it not also true that, if I may engage in my own Hellenistic argument of logic, that in Brooks' movie, "Springtime for Hitler" was a huge hit, ultimately sending its producers to prison for fraud? And so, while many flaws exist in "All About Love," it too manages to shock the audience into an entertaining and interesting exploration into the many natures of love. We begin by tipping our top hats to this production's creators - Murray Ross, whose penchant for re-setting theatrical classics borders on the obsessive, and here, by accomplishing a 2,400 year update, indulges his fancy as never before; Mark Arnest, the critic risking the wrath of his peers by allowing himself to be swept away by Ross' enthusiasm and composing the eight songs, with lyric help from wife Lauren, that punctuate Plato's points in a whole other dimension.
Russell Parkman's set is part night club, part penthouse, part Mt. Olympus and part grandstand - fittingly ambiguous for such a metaphorically rich undertaking. Arnest himself assumed the keyboard, attempting to bridge the gap between the often jarring synthesized score and the moment.
The cocktail party, I'm sorry, Symposium begins. Each guest given a chance to argue that their view of love is the closest to reality. Ricky Pfohl's overly- animated Phaedrus advocates love's balance between shame and pride. Again, there's no preparation for when he taps his way through "Wherever Love Goes" - you will be stunned by the transition! The first of a multitude of outrageous rhymes - "the Ladies from Hades" - is pronounced. These guys had fun putting this together, maybe too much, for oft times the word play, both in song and in dialogue, is high on the groan quotient. But the invention of having the discussion of the gods on the order of gossip mongering is a brilliant convention.
John Epps and his Pausanias gyrate through the angular "Two Aphrodites," David Wild's especially believable Eryximachus proposes the theory of "Medicinal Love," Charles Schnetzer's finely tuned comedic and musical talents are given full reign in his unceasingly cynical portrayal of Aristophanes and the "Lost & Found" narcissistic take on love that uses a cheese ball as metaphor for the human condition.
Jack Ward and his Agathon's feminine flare go classic in the number "This is Love" It was here that I wished more attention had been made to making the audiences a greater part of the theatrical energy - we ere so close and yet not really included.
And then it was time for the lesson by Socrates, whom Mel Crier brought fine oratory to, but gave little for us to appreciate when not on center stage. What was to be the ultimate view of love, freeing it from conventional imagery, was brought forth by with intelligence and musicality by Socrates' muse, Diotima, the fine accomplishment of Jana Ross who gets the evening's title tune.
Saving the best for last, Plato, Ross and Arnest are well served by Richard Ortiz's superb offering of the drunken Alcibiades, who leaves us in appropriate confusion about this concept we'd probably all rather not define anyway. The music never stands as original creation, wavering between the classic 30s style to LLoyd Webber with a little bit of Sondheim and Vaughan Williams thrown in. But it succeeds by its variety.
The ingredients of "All About Love" make for a challenge to the audience. But after all, theater is at its best when it goes beyond simple diversion and if, you will, shakes up our air of complacency. Five more performances are scheduled for through next weekend. Call 262-3232 for information.
A new terrain for local possibility was carved out by this daring undertaking. I urge its creators to come back to us with additonal boundary stretching in the future. This is David Sckolnik.
By Kinch Glisson / The Scribe, September 10, 1997
A musical based on Plato's Symposium. Who'd-a thunk it?
But if you're expecting a boring lecture on the nature of Plato's philosophy, think again. Murray Ross' script and Mark Arnest's score make All about Love a night to remember.
Set in a large, metropolitan 1930s city (the Greek architecture and "Hotel Zeus" building in the distance make it into an Athens-Manhattan mixture), the plot involves five gay friends invited to Agathon's (Jack Ward, Jr.) penthouse apartment for a cocktail party and meeting of the minds. For one certain hint that the night's proceedings will wander toward the philosophical, one of the partygoers is none other than Socrates, played with quiet sincerity and sarcasm by Mel Grier.
The conversation turns to the nature of love, and our six intellectuals leap upon the subject. Amidst a large variety of banter and fine wines, each one is driven to give a speech concerning what they think of love.
Socrates' speech is completed by his lady friend and teacher, Diotima (Jana Ross). Her Mae West look brings the show to a new level of understanding and fun.
Another wonderful character is Ricky Pfohl's quirky Phaedrus, whose high-pitched enthusiasm makes him seem as if he has just left high school - especially when compared to his companion, the learned doctor Eryximachus, to whom David Wild lends a noble bearing and a pleasant sense of humor.
The night is a work of magic, thanks, in no small part, to Charles Schnetzer. As the comedian Aristophanes, Schnetzer shines both in his performance and his singing. His personal speech about the nature of love provides the most humorous moment in the entire play. In contrast, his song provides one of the most soulful.
The piano player, for our musically-inclined friends, is the play's composer, Mark Arnest, who masterfully accompanies each one of the men on their songs.
All About Love treats the audience to a night of enchantment and wonder. Every aspect of love is covered, leaving each person touched at least once. The fact that most of the characters are homosexual may daunt some theatregoers, but one of the points of the show is that love is the same feeling, no matter what the object.
By Mark Arnest / Gazette theater critic and composer of "All About Love"
Critics are all jerks anyway, right? Not quite. Like "Rashomon," each voice above adds something important to the picture of "All About Love." I would have liked to hear more about Russell Parkman's set, a magical blending of classical Greece and classic RKO musicals that just shimmered under the lights. On the other hand, nobody really took us to task for the premier's most crucial weakness: The fact that, for a show that depends for a good deal of its atmosphere on being polished, "All About Love" was quite rough - entirely the fault of writers who kept changing lines until (and even after) the final performance.
Thom Wise's review, other than its inexplicable last paragraph - isn't there a lot of great theater in which people talk about things for which there is no absolute right or wrong? - is just the sort of lukewarm review I've written now and then, going the opposite direction: fighting traffic on I-25 up to Denver, and getting home exhausted and crabby at midnight. Wise was clearly more interested in the fact that the musical was being staged in the birthplace of the notorious Amendment 2, a 1992 referendum that would have legalized discrimination against homosexuals in Colorado, than in "All About Love" itself. But the world is rarely so simple as we'd like it to be, and, despite the Springs' reputation, it took no particular courage to mount "All About Love" here. Unless you count the woman who clomped out noisily one night when Alcibiades pulled out the anatomically-more-than-correct statue of a satyr, I'm sad to report that we got not a single protester.
Jeremy mostly writes about music for the Gazette (I would have gladly reviewed the show, but they turned down my offer), and turned out a solid review for someone off his turf - a lot better than I would do with a techno band, for sure. He's dead wrong on one major point - "All About Love" is not camp - but he was right about the latter part of the show dragging. We did a lot of pruning and rearranging as the run went on. And yes, it took a while to get the sound technician to understand that he was actually expected to move the faders up and down.
One apparent disagreement between Jeremy's review and Kinch Glisson's - that I either (1) didn't play piano enough to justify my presence onstage, or (2) accompanied the singers masterfully - is less "Rashomon"-like than it appears. Jeremy saw the show before Kinch, and in between, Murray and I decided that I should indeed play more. (And more, and more - if Kinch had seen "All About Love" the last weekend, he might have found my playing downright obtrusive.)
As a critic, David Sckolnik, who also writes for the Colorado Springs Independent, is sometimes bad cop to my good cop. He's also a fine actor and singer, so his compliments mean a lot. (By the same token, his criticism - ouch - stings.)
Though everything Kinch says is true, in fairness he's much younger and less jaded than the other critics here. He's also a local actor, which - you see, I'm plenty jaded - may have had some unconscious bearing on his praise of the local theater critic. No, what am I thinking? The idea is ridiculous.