TV REVIEWS : ‘Romance’: Lovely Concept, but Less Than Nourishing
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The musical comedy “Romance Romance,” videotaped in its original theatrical form, brings the Broadway theater to TV in “Clairol on Broadway” (6 and 10 tonight on A&E;).
The first of a series of performing arts showcases designed to share the theatergoing experience, this 1988 Tony-nominated show was staged by the Old Globe in San Diego in 1989 but never made it to Los Angeles, which is not hard to understand. At best, it’s a souffle, a belle epoque Valentine (aptly repeating on A&E; on Valentine’s Day) but not exactly substantial nourishment.
A thematically related set of one-act musicals about the joys and agonies of love, the show is long on concept and short on content. Librettist Barry Harman and composer Keith Herrmann dip into a turn-of-the-century short story by Arthur Schnitzler for the opening Viennese episode, “The Little Comedy,” and then cleverly swing events to a contemporary, love-smitten couple in New York’s Hamptons in Act II’s “Summer Share,” updated from a 19th-Century French play, “Pain de Menage,” by Jules Renard.
The highly attractive romantic leads, John Herrera and Susan Moniz (supported by counterpointing alter egos John DeLuca and Deborah Graham), are particularly charming as two jaded aristocrats who disguise themselves as commoners in order to find love in “The Little Comedy.”
As co-directed for TV by David Stern and lyricist-adapter Harman, the production enjoys a seamless, airy liquidity that blends realism and expressionism, giving viewers a genuinely theatrical illusion that TV seldom indulges.
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