Review - 'I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change' at Beef & Boards, Indianapolis

By FRANK PHILLIPS
frankphi@hotmail.com

What is love?

That has been a question of the poets for thousands, if not millions of years.

That is the question examined in “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change,” the current offering at Beef & Boards Dinner Theatre, off Michigan Road at the pyramids in Indianapolis.

It is a light-hearted look at the question of male-female relationships offered through a series of vignettes in music and word.

This is a musical-comedy, but if you are expecting the big-production stories and 1950s values of “South Pacific,” plan to change your expectations or come later this season when “South Pacific” will be produced.

No, “I Love You,” is edgy. It is what I would call water cooler humor. It is the kind of gossip discussed in many offices during breaks. I could see myself and various people I know in the various mini-plays presented.

Who cannot identify with the couple trying to welcome their friend who brought a new toy for the new baby? One can forget how to to speak adult-ese after adoring their first-born.

Or, who can’t identify with the married couple who decide the kids are in bed and they can, if they’re lucky, have sex before falling asleep exhausted at the end of a long, hard day?

There are also plays portraying the couple on their first date who want to pretend their relationship is much farther along - to avoid the awkwardness of those early encounters.

Video dating and attorney advertisements on TV get needled as well.

To whom would I recommend this play? Probably, someone who likes shows dealing with real relationships. I was drawn to compare “I Love You ...” to “M*A*S*H” the movie.

It is gritty, it is real and it shows the instant-satisfaction-by-technology claims of dating services to be bunk - there are no quick and easy answers to the relationships of men and women. But they sure are funny questions!

The cast is wonderful. Nick Spear and Rebecca Spear are married in real life. also featured are Robert J. Townsend and Laurie Walton.
After reading her bio and seeing the play, Walton intrigued me.

In real life, she is middle-aged, married and the mother of an 18-year-old and a 14-year-old, living in the Bronx, N.Y.

Who knows more about romance than married parents of teenagers? I believe she brings a needed maturity to the cast.

My wife, Linda, was home, ill, so I couldn’t get her perspective on the show.

Don’t misunderstand - the other three are wonderful as well.

Oh, one other word - don’t judge the show too early. I’m not sure why, but the cast didn’t really seem to meld until half way through Act One. By the finale, they were smokin’.

The show continues through Feb. 5

Call the box office, (317) 872-9664. Tickets cost $29-$51, including show, buffet, tax, coffee and tea.

On the Net:
Beef & Boards Dinner Theatre:
http://www.beefandboards.com