Ring in the holidays Southern-style with 'Tuna Christmas'
Play Review
By Cary Ginell soundthink@aol.com

HOWDY, NEIGHBOR- Dixie Deberry (Will Shupe), left, and Aunt Pearl (Fred Helsel) welcome y'all to "Tuna Christmas" at the Simi Valley Cultural Arts Center. Shupe and Helsel play all 22 characters.

Theater League's "Love Sweet Love," a new musical based on the songs of Burt Bacharach and Hal David, hit the local stage last week. The show, another socalled "popsical," had its premiere in Arizona only a few weeks ago.

After seeing this production at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza, one begins to wonder if the writers of Broadway shows have been on strike in addition to their counterparts in film and television. This greatest hits package consists of 31- count 'em- songs written by the prolific writing team of the '60s and early '70s, which permeate a storyline of dubious merit.

Bacharach and David were responsible for writing some of the most engaging and tuneful pop hits of their era. Unfortunately, their catalog is too light and frothy when taken in massive doses, somewhat like eating a whipped cream pie in one sitting.

Director/choreographer Sha Newman injected Bacharach and David's songs into a spurious book by C. Ben Wolfe, which resulted in many of the songs being forced into the plot, some uncomfortably, and others outrageously and even laughably so.

The story focuses on four young women and their struggles with their romantic lives. Since Bacharach and David's songs mostly dealt with such matters, the producers thought this catalog would be a natural for musical theater; however, the execution was not as good as the idea. Whereas "Mamma Mia!", the Abba showcase, went over the top to make a joke of the campy placement of songs into its story, "Love Sweet Love" takes its song placement seriously, and the result falls as flat as a deflated beach ball.

The show was further hampered by being written without dialog, a device that worked in Billy Joel's "Movin' Out," but just served to make the songs in "Love Sweet Love" even more ill-fitting.

Each of the four main characters is looking for love. Homebound housewife Chris (Kristen Howe) is married to a louse (Keith A. Bearden) who cheats on her with floozy hairdresser Katherine (Kara Shaw). Amy (Alaine Kashian) is perky but accident prone, until she meets lanky basketball nerd Norman (Matthew Patrick Davis). When that happens, it's love at first dribble.

Gwen (Dawnn Lewis) has been in a wheelchair since a highway accident injured her and took the life of her husband (who, we find out, was named Alfie). This last characterization proves to be not only of questionable taste but even offensive and exploitative, as the lyrics to "One Less Bell to Answer" had to be altered to make references to her dead husband.

Some of the songs had no business being in the show, such as the themes from motion pictures such as "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" and "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head," from "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." The producers had an easy solution for fitting these songs into the story: "Let's have them sung in a karaoke bar!"

Other songs were ruined by illadvised arrangements. The wistful ballads "Trains and Boats and Planes" and "Message to Michael" were turned into up-tempo dance numbers while "This Guy's in Love with You" (a classic sung by Herb Alpert) and "What's New, Pussycat?" (not one of David's better lyrics) became musical pickup lines.

There is no complaining about the performances. All of the cast members have great voices, and Lloyd Cooper's orchestrations were exemplary. But the way most of the songs had to be shoehorned into place makes one urge director Newman and writer Wolfe to take a refresher course at the Rodgers & Hammerstein school of song integration.

To paraphrase the title song of the show, what the world needs now is a showcase worthy of Bacharach and David's remarkable song canon. Regrettably, "Love Sweet Love" isn't it.