Romantic, charming and brimming with joy, this musical comedy reminds us that one kind deed can open up a world of possibilities. At Maraczek’s Parfumerie, clerks Georg and Amalia are constantly at odds. Outside of work, they’re each falling madly in love with an anonymous pen pal, unaware that it is the other. This nostalgic Broadway hit inspired by the story that gave us The Shop Around the Corner and You’ve Got Mail is “as sweet and exhilarating as a first kiss” (New York Daily News). Recommended for ages 12 and above.
She Loves Me
Reviews
The production is outstanding in almost every respect, conveniently obscuring the fact that the show itself has some failings—the primary one being the absence of a single great song. “Vanilla Ice Cream” and “A Trip to the Library,” arguably the two best tunes, are both in the second act, making this two-and-one-half-hour confection a very long evening.
A prime example of a small gem polished to brilliant shine is currently on South Coast Repertory’s main stage with its new production of the eternally under-appreciated 1963 musical “She Loves Me.”
And when embodied by a cast as expertly attuned as this one, a cast that is gifted and idiosyncratic enough to ward off any saccharine clichés, you know you have a winner. One which includes a winning Sam Ludwig as Steven Kodaly, Matthew Henerson as Ladislov Sipos, Ricky Abilez as Arpad Laszlo, and a scrumptious Marlene Martinez as Ilona Ritter, swimming in a deeply satisfying sweetness usually lacking in brassier shows. In fact, the cheerful seamlessness of “She Loves Me” defies deconstruction and is remarkably free of any subtexts or political statements like many other vintage musicals.
Sure, though SCR's admirable SHE LOVES ME, for the most part, still has many charming, beautifully-staged, and well-sung moments, it also somehow feels like it is slightly reigned in, as if there was a purposeful attempt to downscale some of its built-in whimsy and spirited vivaciousness---particularly in the first act where emotional expressions all seem to sit in the same middle area... never tipping over to too angry or too sad or too happy or too, well, anything (that is, until we meet an over-enunciating maitre d that finds the audience, understandably, giggling heavily for the first time since the show began).
The provenance of the musical, She Loves Me, is as impeccable as it is fascinating. The show is based on the 1936 play, Parfumerie, by Hungarian playwright, Miklós László, which morphed into the 1940 film, The Shop Around the Corner, starring James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan. It rose again as In the Good Old Summertime, which starred Judy Garland and Van Johnson. My other brain, who always sits next to me when I go to the theatre, whispered, “This is a lot like You’ve Got Mail.” Sure enough, good old Wikipedia lists it as starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.
Kudos to Ivers for bringing a Golden Age musical to SCR and producing it faithfully, without any dark postmodern twists or tortured “reimagining” of time and place. “She Loves Me” is a masterwork in its own way, and it succeeds just fine without being remolded into something that it was never meant to be.
She Loves Me is the most lovable show one is likely to see this year, if not this millennium.
The comedy is overdone, the amplification system overlays a canned quality onto the singing and the performers stick mostly to the surface of their characters. But I have to confess I ate the whole thing, smiling even as I lapped up the sweet melted remains. “She Loves Me” is at once difficult to get right and impossible to completely mess up.
South Coast Repertory may do only the occasional full-fledged Broadway musical, but like Sweeney Todd, Once, and The Light In The Piazza before it, She Loves Me makes it abundantly clear that when SCR makes musical theater magic, it simply doesn’t get better than that.
The production is outstanding in almost every respect, conveniently obscuring the fact that the show itself has some failings—the primary one being the absence of a single great song. “Vanilla Ice Cream” and “A Trip to the Library,” arguably the two best tunes, are both in the second act, making this two-and-one-half-hour confection a very long evening.
A prime example of a small gem polished to brilliant shine is currently on South Coast Repertory’s main stage with its new production of the eternally under-appreciated 1963 musical “She Loves Me.”
And when embodied by a cast as expertly attuned as this one, a cast that is gifted and idiosyncratic enough to ward off any saccharine clichés, you know you have a winner. One which includes a winning Sam Ludwig as Steven Kodaly, Matthew Henerson as Ladislov Sipos, Ricky Abilez as Arpad Laszlo, and a scrumptious Marlene Martinez as Ilona Ritter, swimming in a deeply satisfying sweetness usually lacking in brassier shows. In fact, the cheerful seamlessness of “She Loves Me” defies deconstruction and is remarkably free of any subtexts or political statements like many other vintage musicals.
Sure, though SCR's admirable SHE LOVES ME, for the most part, still has many charming, beautifully-staged, and well-sung moments, it also somehow feels like it is slightly reigned in, as if there was a purposeful attempt to downscale some of its built-in whimsy and spirited vivaciousness---particularly in the first act where emotional expressions all seem to sit in the same middle area... never tipping over to too angry or too sad or too happy or too, well, anything (that is, until we meet an over-enunciating maitre d that finds the audience, understandably, giggling heavily for the first time since the show began).
The provenance of the musical, She Loves Me, is as impeccable as it is fascinating. The show is based on the 1936 play, Parfumerie, by Hungarian playwright, Miklós László, which morphed into the 1940 film, The Shop Around the Corner, starring James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan. It rose again as In the Good Old Summertime, which starred Judy Garland and Van Johnson. My other brain, who always sits next to me when I go to the theatre, whispered, “This is a lot like You’ve Got Mail.” Sure enough, good old Wikipedia lists it as starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.
Kudos to Ivers for bringing a Golden Age musical to SCR and producing it faithfully, without any dark postmodern twists or tortured “reimagining” of time and place. “She Loves Me” is a masterwork in its own way, and it succeeds just fine without being remolded into something that it was never meant to be.
She Loves Me is the most lovable show one is likely to see this year, if not this millennium.
The comedy is overdone, the amplification system overlays a canned quality onto the singing and the performers stick mostly to the surface of their characters. But I have to confess I ate the whole thing, smiling even as I lapped up the sweet melted remains. “She Loves Me” is at once difficult to get right and impossible to completely mess up.
South Coast Repertory may do only the occasional full-fledged Broadway musical, but like Sweeney Todd, Once, and The Light In The Piazza before it, She Loves Me makes it abundantly clear that when SCR makes musical theater magic, it simply doesn’t get better than that.