Trousers and jaws drop during 'Loveplay'
ROME- The English Theatre of Rome presented a weekend of 'laughs, lust and love at Teatro l’Arciliuto' in Piazza Montevecchio late last year. The December feature Loveplay, written by British playwright Moira Buffini was directed by Douglas Dean and produced by Gaby Ford Entertainment. This serio-comic looked at 2000 years of human folly and without the evincing acting and wealth of skin offered, might have had too many characters and wardrobe details to sort out in only 90 minutes.
A hodgepodge of rags, sequins, and fabric composed the garb of various centuries and were rather distractingly random at first, but as the acts got steamier and acting more powerful the details didn’t seem to matter.
A captivating scene came with the Canadian Stefania Indelicato while playing a wealthy, educated, and virginal elderly woman who invited a male prostitute (played by Antonio Pauletta) into her home and to only undress himself. The full red carpet and walls of Teatro Arciliuito and Pauletta’s trouser-less body heated the wintry basement air of the theatre. Indelicato touches and examines the figure as an anthropologist inspects a newly discovered bone, before laughing aloud.
In the another era, the wide, large whites of a nun’s eyes, played by Cara Legg, intrigued the audience as she stared at an invisible Jesus before dropping a smooch on a fellow sister.
Things got groovier while Joanna Kohorst and Dave Folsom attempt to emancipate free love with professional swingers (photo 2). Kohort’s character depicts a young hippie-type attempting to emancipate ‘free love’ for her boyfriend, though as soon as the motorcycle swingers arrived to the squat (while Folsom is in the background playing with the fuse box), the buzz died while she hid in the corner behind a blanket.
A final scene explored the world of online dating, bringing the audience back home to modern day. A love-less online dating agency manager invited two men and women from her site to the agency and in less than ten minutes a couple leaves the party abruptly after having ‘found’ each other. The shocked and slightly furious host shows her ultimate disbelief in her own genius after the door closes behind them.
After the voyage through a Roman temple, medieval abbey, Victorian studios, and the 1960s squat, the story of love, through the contemporary media of online dating, is simple and delicate – the emotional moment when that OKCupid profile you’ve been stalking for days comes to physical life - comparison to the emotionless, misogynist Roman times was depicted at the beginning of the play.
Loveplay’ featured local American, Bulgarian, Canadian, English, French, Greek, Irish, Italian and Scottish cast. The costumes were designed and crafted by Milena Germanova and Meagan Nouis. The next English Theatre of Rome play, Old Times opens Sunday March 3, is written by Harold Pinter and to be directed by professional Barry Brunetti, again at Teatro Arciliuto of Rome.
