Sometimes it's the quieter, more reflective works that carry the biggest bang. This must have been Joe Masteroff's intention when he turned the unassuming but charming 1940 Jimmy Stewart film,
The Shop Around the Corner, into a musical. Along with collaborators Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock, Masteroff created an anomaly: an intimate, unpretentious, big Broadway musical.
She Loves Me takes place in a perfume shop in Budapest in 1934. The characters are hardworking, clean-living people, but they are unsatisfied with their love lives. Two store clerks despise each other, so naturally they both join a secret pen pal society and fall in love -- unbeknownst to one another. The rest of the play involves the unraveling of this love-hate relationship.
The director of this NKU production, Dee Anne Bryll, has created such a seamless virtual world that nothing seems amiss or out of place. The audience is magically transported back to Hungary in 1934, or perhaps to the Broadway of 1963. The nostalgic curvilinear setting, the moody lighting, the authentic costumes and the string-heavy combo all conspire to put the most jaded of us into a romantic frame of mind.
Brill's seasoned cast is headed by Rich Roedersheimer and Lesley Hitch as the feuding lovers. At first, Roedersheimer seems to be portraying a linebacker or a Methodist minister, but he is actually very subtly and economically building his character to the final physical and emotional climax in song. Hitch's character is more self-consumed, but her portrayal is watchable and alive. She has an excellent mezzo-soprano voice, perfect diction and is quirky without relinquishing believability.
Masteroff retains the comic couple from the old-time operettas, which puts the major couple in perspective. This comic couple is played with verve by Natalie Bird and Rodger Pille. While our leading players retain a chaste relationship through letters, this couple is on the outs, resulting from too much sex too soon. Bird is a wonderful supporting player with both intelligence and charisma. Pille is a sleazy and obnoxious womanizer who turns the character's egocentricity into irresistible comedy -- even while dancing! Grade: A
SHE LOVES ME, presented by Northern Kentucky University's Department of Theatre and Dance, continues through July 29.
