The cast of LOVE/SICK looks to bring laughs to the audience.
Relationships can be like puzzles. Putting them together might seem easy when you look at the bigger picture, but putting them together could take some time. Navigating relationships is the theme of the newest LRSC Playmakers production of LOVE/SICK. The play is an anthology written in 2010 by Massachusetts playwright and actor John Cariani. The show premiered in 2010 High Point University and ran off-Broadway in 2015.
Bringing it to the stage at LRSC is veteran director April Hubbard. She is directing a cast she has worked with in the past in “The Tempest.” The cast gets to swap sonnets for contemporary dialogue in this production.
Billed as an “unromantic comedy,” the play is about “nine slightly twisted and completely hilarious short plays” that deal with relationships, love, and everything in between.
“There are funny moments in every scene but also there are sad and serious moments. There’s not one that is all laughs, there’s not one that’s all sad. The humor in dark places… There is something sad or tragic in every scene,” Hubbard said.
“We don’t have a lot of coming together moments. We have a lot of tearing apart… It’s about the more challenging moments in relationships.”
One story deals with a couple where one wants a baby and the other doesn’t, a lesbian couple, a gay couple, a singing telegram who delivers the opposite of a proposal, another has a nervous tic he can’t shake, and other tales of romantic woes.
The small cast plays multiple roles so expect to see your favorite players more than once.
Cariani wrote the script with lots of overlapping dialogue, characters speak fast, and there’s a rhythm to how they speak.
Hubbard hopes the audience comes away looking at the challenges that come with relationships. “I hope they think about their relationships and their lives and perhaps find similarities in some of the challenges… It’s a delightful play for this cast. They’re having fun with the script. I think people will be entertained but given deep questions to think about.”
LOVE/SICK will be performed on Feb. 27, 28, and March 1 at 7:30 p.m. and March 2 at 2 p.m. at the Robert Fawcett Auditorium. Tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for seniors and children. Students are free.
