Riverside Theatre brings intimacy to its mainstage with its affectionate production of “The Last Romance,” a play by one of its favorite playwrights, Joe DiPietro.
For sure, a play about two senior citizens falling in love is sentimentality served with a ladle. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Sentimentality is too derided in our sophisticated society. Where would we be without heart?
In fact, we seem to be growing up with DiPietro. In “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change” we were told that we were perfect but that we had to change in order to maintain our young marriage. Then we went “Over the River and Through the Woods” to visit our aging grandparents. Now, we ARE those aging grandparents struggling with loneliness.
There are also plenty of laughs in this, thanks to actor P.J. Benjamin. He disappears into his role of Ralph Bellini, a widower who lives with his sister Rose in the Italian section of Hoboken, New Jersey.
Benjamin brings a rich, well-rounded portrayal to Ralph. You won’t be surprised by that if you read the program: Benjamin had 3,500 performances as the Wizard in “Wicked” on Broadway and on tour.
While his Ralph is full of life, there’s a pervasive sadness to him as well. Sixty-year-old memories of losing an opportunity to sing at the Met haunt him. He’s lonely but funny; a lovable grouch who, at the beginning of the play, repeatedly calls out “Madonne” – each one a complete sentence – when his pushy sister finds him. But she’s just happy he’s “not dead in the gutter.”
Portraying Rose is the ever-excellent Andrea Gallo, who nearly stole the show as the French maid in Riverside’s 2017 production of “Private Lives.” Here, she serves up love laced with irascibility, especially when she calls out to the dogs to “shaddup.” We know she feels protective of her brother when she sees him on a park bench talking with a strange woman, Carol. In Gallo’s hands, the truths we learn about Rose tug at our hearts as much as the budding relationship between Ralph and Carol.
As portrayed by Broadway, off-Broadway and regional theater veteran actress Louisa Flaningam, Carol traverses a wide spectrum. When she first meets Ralph, she has come to a dog park to walk “Peaches,” her dog. At first suspicious of this strange man, Carol eventually warms to him and we cheer for the possibility of a “last romance.” Flaningam and Benjamin are real-life husband and wife, so their warm, easy connection is very convincing.
A fourth character is the Young Man. He is played by Colten Blair, an up-and-coming performer who has toured with “The Sound of Music” and has sung opera professionally. It’s the Young Man who steps in and sings operatic interludes, oh with such beauty and earnestness. He also serves as a clever personal valet for Ralph, helping to change scenes and settings.
From the believable characters to the polished stage efficiency, director Chris Clavelli, resident director at the Florida Repertory Theatre in Fort Myers, brings warmth and soul to this production.
His designers, Ray Recht (scenery), Susan Mickey (costume), Todd Wren (lighting) and Trevor Peters (sound), work in wonderful harmony here. Just as the writing and performances easily move us along the storyline, so too do all these technical elements.
We see a tree-lined street with an autumn canopy of oranges and reds, like Carol’s hair. A branch of leaves suggests the movement of time as they cast a moving shadow on the exterior of the brownstones. Carol’s brown boots in her first scene are as stolid and rooted in place as are the tree trunks; neither she nor those trees are moving anywhere. And a sweet sound design of occasional yapping dogs make you feel as if you are in the midst of this park.
Yes, a conflict does arise. It may make you want to pull out your hair when DiPietro has Rose intone “October 25” a few times, suggesting its looming nature, just to discover, meh. And you’ll end up wondering “who” (or “what,” for the more philosophical) the villain was in the story. It makes for a good post-theater conversation.
But if tenderness mixed with melancholy and ratcheted up with a “will they, won’t they” urgency make for a good trip to the theater for you, then “The Last Romance” is your cup of chamomile.
“The Last Romance” runs through Feb. 24 at Riverside Theatre, 3250 Riverside Drive, Vero Beach. Tickets start at $35. Call 772-231-6990 or visit RiversideTheatre.com.
