Boston is great, but there's nothing like a taste of the Big Apple. On Feb. 1, the Factory Theater brought the flavor of New York to South Boston with a production of "I Love You Because," a musical loosely based on Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice."
Offering a mix of passionate love ballads, hysterical awkwardness and local color, "I Love You Because" tells a comic love story of two single East Villagers that is bound to charm Boston theatergoers and displaced New Yorkers alike.
At the start of the musical, twenty-somethings Marcy Fitzwilliam (played by Shawna O'Brian) and Austin Bennet (Samuel Moscoso) have each ended two-year relationships. Fitzwilliam, a free-spirited artist, enlists her friend Diana (Kacee Stiati) to help her rebound with the worst match possible, who she believes will lead her to Mr. Right. After discovering his girlfriend cheating, Bennet, a conservative greeting card writer, falls back on his brother Jeff (Scot Towers) who insists that getting laid will cure his heartache.
Their two worlds collide when Diana and Jeff arrange a double date, and Fitzwilliam and Bennet converse in a turbulent first meeting. Convinced that he is the perfectly wrong guy for her, Fitzwilliam agrees to help Bennet on his quest to win back his ex-girlfriend in the hopes of getting closer to him. In the mean time, Jeff and Diana begin a "friends-with-benefits" arrangement. Eventually, finding themselves enchanted with the strangeness of their attraction, both couples end up falling in love.
Although the romance of Fitzwilliam and Bennet anchors the musical's plot, the supporting characters undoubtedly generate the most laughs. One of the funniest numbers, "We're Just Friends," highlights Jeff and Diana's secretly intimate relationship with a series of awkward statements proving the song's title to be all but relevant.
Jeff, a 25-year-old going on five, sings, "Why explain what can't be explained" while Diana, a well dressed actuary, subtly fills in the details between chorus lines. After belting, "We're just friends," Diana adds, "who see each other naked," leading to the audience's uninhibited laughter.
The couple's antics continue with numerous scenes in Jeff's apartment. One opens with Jeff exclaiming, "I am the king of Febreze" as he avoids a trip to the laundromat by spraying his worn baggy jeans with the magical fluid.
The leading couple, Fitzwilliam and Bennett, also shares some uncomfortably funny moments. Upon first meeting Fitzwilliam, Bennet creates one of the worst pickup lines ever known to musical theater when he says, "You have a big belt," in response to the red belt wrapped around the waist of her knit dress.
Bennet's humorous stiffness continues when he insists the couple look up movie times on Moviefone.com instead of going to the theater spontaneously. The epic battle between fate and Moviefone ends when an angry neighbor with a Bronx accent staggers to the apartment door in a blue bathrobe and pink hair curlers demanding silence.
Most of the couple's relationship, however, is characterized by the romantic clichés typical to musical theater. After a one night stand with Bennet, Fitzwilliam tries to convince herself that she's better off on her own as a strong, independent woman in the ballad "Alone." But Fitzwilliam is far too lonely without a man in her life. As usual, true love conquers all, and Bennet and Fitzwilliam share a happily-ever-after ending. This kind predictability can be forgiven when combined with the spontaneity of the aforementioned comic relief.
The intimacy of the space also enhances the performance of love ballads that otherwise may have seemed distant and flat. The Factory Theater, located in the basement of the former Piano Craft Guild, is a 49-seat theater enclosed by original redbrick from the 1850s. With only two rows, every member of the audience is no more than eight feet from the performers
While singing "Maybe We Just Made Love," a reaction to his one night of intimacy with Fitzwilliam, Bennet stands only a foot from the front row. The purity and beauty of his naked voice is a crystal clear reminder of the magical escape musical theater can provide for most anyone.
In "I Love You Because," the idyllic merges with the comical strikingly well, even though the musical struggles to overcome stereotypical romance. In the closing scene, Fitzwilliam and Bennet, as well as Jeff and Diana, realize that they love each other because of their flaws. In contrast, "I Love You Because" may not be admired because of its shortcomings, but because of the way idealism is combined with down-to-earth comedy.
