I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change Perfect For Valentine’s

Hannah Hayley and Alex Martinez meet in Willow Theatre’s I Love You, You;re Perfect, Now Change. (Photos by Jodie Langel)

By Britin Haller

Perfect for Valentine’s Day month is I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change staged by the Off-Glades Theatre Company at the Willow Theatre in Boca Raton. ILYYPNC is a musical revue themed around the difficulties and joys of romantic relationships.

ILYYPNC burst upon the scene in 1996 and still maintains its title as the second-longest running off-Broadway musical. It’s since been performed in over thirty countries around the world. And likely as many theaters in Florida.

Through a series of vignettes and songs, ILYYPNC has us experience the highs and lows of dating, love, marriage, sex, kids, and even death. But don’t expect this to be the updated 2017 version that includes gay and lesbian representation, because in catering to the mostly older married Boca crowd, this is straight male-female all the way.

The most gay we get is when one woman on a bad date wonders if she should have been a lesbian. But what woman fed up with men has not wondered that at some point in her life? And one of the male actors gets a little handsy with his male co-star at times, making us wonder if they’re going to go there, or if that actor is just a touchy-feely guy. Hint: He’s just a touchy-feely guy.

There are four cast members, two women and two men who alternate with individual numbers, boy-girl, other boy-girl, girl-girl (platonic), boy-boy (also platonic), other boy-girl, other boy-girl, and well you get the drift.

Some of the vignettes are touching, some funny, some not funny although they are supposed to be funny, a couple were painful to sit through, and a couple were stand-outs that either resonated with us, or left a mark on us, or both. As that old expression goes, sometimes you have to take the bitter with the sweet.

The music was composed by Jimmy Roberts with Tony Award-winner Joe DiPietro (Over the River and Through the Woods) as the brainchild behind the book and lyrics. It’s not typical for a revue to have original songs, and this is what sets ILYYPNC apart and is likely a huge part of its success.

Directing ILYYPNC is a “nostalgic” full-circle moment for Jodie Langel, who is also the Artistic/Executive Director for the Off-Glades Theatre Company. Nostalgic because Langel starred for two years in its original off-Broadway production at the Westside Theatre.

Nicole Roach and Hannah Haley

Following in Langel’s ILYYPNC footsteps at the Willow Theatre in Boca are Bruno Faria, Hannah Hayley, Alex Martinez and Nicole Roach as the ones who play a variety of roles.

Each of the four has a stand-out piece that showcases their talents. For Hannah Hayley, it’s “I Will Be Loved Tonight,” a pretty tune where her high soprano is accompanied by piano and violin. It’s gorgeous.

For Nicole Roach, who pulls double duty as ILYYPNC’s lighting designer, it’s the hysterical “Always A Bridesmaid,” where her character, attired in a horrible pink satin dress with ruffled sleeves, complains about her girlfriends’ horrible choices in both bridesmaid outfits and husbands.

Alex Martinez wows us with the incredible “Shouldn’t I Be Less In Love With You?” a truly beautiful love song sung by a husband to his wife of thirty years. It was our favorite performance of the evening.

Bruno Faria was recently seen on this same stage in another musical revue. Not meaning to pigeonhole him because he’s clearly capable of, and has done so much more, but this is a nice niche for him. Faria is having a lot of fun hamming it up.

Faria gets his big chance in the one where the new parents can’t stop talking baby talk to their best friend who comes to visit. “Wait, I have sonogram pictures!” Faria endears himself to us in the cute and clever “The Baby Song.”

But it’s in an unnamed dialogue-only scene where Faria makes his biggest mark as an inmate at the Palm Beach Correctional Facility who is part of the “Scared Straight to the Altar” program. Attired in an orange jumpsuit, black skullcap, and handcuffs, Faria peacocks around in glorious fashion. This is the one Faria will be remembered most for on your drive home.

Other stand-outs were the ones where the parents are lamenting their son’s break-up with his longtime girlfriend “Who cares if you’ve destroyed your parent’s dreams?” and the one where two elderly people with very different views on life meet in a funeral home lobby. “Someday I’ll die,” Arthur says. “Someday I’ll live,” Muriel replies. Just try not being moved by those profound words in “I Can Live With That.”

Or the one where Faria and Roach are at the movies, and now he regrets letting her pick it out, because he wants chainsaws instead of the Love Story plot of love and dying that she has brought them to. Or the one where the busy and tired parents do a marriage tango after promising their kids a trip to Disney World if they’ll just shut up and go to bed.

Or the one where Hannah Hayley shines in a sketch with pizza guys who use their boxes as spinners (that’s talent!) In real life, Hayley performs as various Disney princesses for birthday parties, and it shows in “He Called Me” where one can imagine her as Snow White.

But there were some clinkers. The one with Martinez and Faria got big laughs from the men, but went totally over the women’s heads. The one where everyone is waiting for something is just okay, and even though it’s a real problem married women have to deal with, we could have done without the Miami Dolphins fan smelling his own crotch. Twice.

ILYYPNC has a lot of costumes and quick changes because every single scene involves new attire. We can’t give proper credit since this department is not mentioned in the playbill, but this was a big job for someone, or several someones, and they didn’t disappoint. Kudos to all the costuming, and a quick shout-out to Hayley’s beige dance shoes that propagate past memories of personally performing (whew, say THAT five times!) for this critic.

Alex Martinez and Bruno Faria

Part of the fun is in local references casually dropped into conversations like TooJay’s, Glades Road, and the Gardens of Boca. Instead of sets, a projection screen is utilized to indicate location. Typically a cost-cutting measure, this can sometimes cause a production to not be taken seriously, but it works well here, and anything else is not necessary.

Thanks to Carlo Sabusap’s design, we see backdrops of a prison, a cluttered nursery, several different rooms of a house, a funeral home, and even popular recognizable Florida settings such as Mizner Park and a shot of buildings on the Intracoastal Waterway.

Usually they are stills, but in the one where the family of four are going for a car ride, the screen changes to a moving street scene, and the juxtaposition of Hayley standing in front of it is unusually stunning.

Melanie Farber, who has made a name for herself in dance locally, acts as the choreographer. There isn’t a lot of movement in ILYYPNC, or not traditional moves anyway. In fact, this is the perfect opportunity for any double-threat performer because the dancing is as simplistic as this critic did in her show choir in college. Not to say that these four stars are not triple threats, because they very well may, we’re just saying it doesn’t really come into play here.

But with that being said, there are many times where synchronicity comes into play, and a great choreographer can be effective for that. Case in point, in “He Called Me” with its romping pizza boys and an elevated Hayley, but never more so than “On The Highway Of Love” where four office chairs come together and move apart simultaneously.

Musical Director Richard Kaydas and violinist Luiba Ohrimenco are a perfect duo. Always present and unobtrusive when necessary, but they take us soaring at other times when the accompaniment fittingly takes over. Stage Manager Bryan Morris and his crew of Eiva Tinney and Mary Page-Hoffmann stay busy with all the shenanigans (good ones) going on.

There are a few things we would do differently with ILYYPNC. Skits we didn’t like so much were the nerds on a date, which is a cute concept, but the song is grating on the ears and received little applause. Hayley continually trying to pull her dress down is a nice touch though.

The one where the couple skips from the first date to their first fight is unfunny (although their singing has pretty harmonies,) as is the one where a divorced mother is making a dating video. Some might argue these vignettes aren’t supposed to be funny (necessarily) and that is a valid point, but they drag on too much to not be, to the point where any poignancy we are supposed to be feeling just comes across as annoyance.

The placement of the video dating one seems odd given it’s just not good (nothing against Hayley who does her best!) and runs on way too long. We would have preferred this one to either be cut entirely or moved to the first act, because as it is now, it’s placed third to last causing us to wonder why we are bringing the show down so close to the end, instead of having us leave on a high note. No pun intended, since there is no song here.

So what we are trying to say is, we love you, you’re perfect, now change.
ILYYPNC makes no apologies. It is what it is. It will never win a Pulitzer. You won’t be pondering over its meaning as you close your eyes to go to dreamland. Except for maybe “Shouldn’t I Be Less In Love With You?” which is still haunting us days later.

I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change is considered a classic in the musical revue world. So if you’re looking for a perfect date night idea, or an evening of light-hearted fun where you don’t have to think too hard (in other words, it’s not Tolstoy,) look no further. Classic tunes like Tom Jones’s “It’s Not Unusual” keeps us entertained before the curtain and during the intermission.

Adult themes such as condoms, orgasms, erections, profanity, and simulated and oral sex make ILYYPNC unsuitable for children or prudes. Please take a second to appreciate the ingeniousness of that last line. We thank you for your applause.

Britin Haller is a mystery author and an editor for Turner Publishing. Her recent short story “So Many Shores in Crookland” can be read in the 150th issue of Black Cat Weekly. Britin’s latest edit, a cozy mystery novel called Dumpster Dying is by Michelle Bennington and available where books are sold. Find Britin across social media.

I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change runs through February 23 at the Willow Theatre at the Sugar Sand Park Community Center, 300 S. Military Trail, Boca Raton, FL: 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 1 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Limited tickets still available. Running time approx. 135 minutes including an intermission. Rated R. Tickets starting at $35. Call 561-347-3948, or visit offgladestheatrecompany.com.