Theatre in Review: Love Song (59E59) Love Song is billed as a romantic comedy, but that's a misnomer. John Kolvenbach's new play touches on married love, sibling love, and illusory love, but at its heart it's about a certain very specific and debilitating form of eccentricity. Then again, whether it touches on any of subjects deeply enough to make a play is open to debate. Kolvenbach makes his points by using the compare-and-contrast method. First up are Harry and Joan. She's a too-tightly-wrapped executive. "You fired the intern because she cried?" inquires Harry, who faces life with much more equanimity. Despite -- or perhaps because of -- their temperamental differences, Harry and Joan live inside their own screwball comedy. In the play's drollest scene, the pair decides to play hooky from work; for Joan, who has never lied on the job, the task of calling in sick forms an almost impassable psychological hurdle and she botches it uproariously. Wheezing into the phone, she tells a colleague, "I think it might be 'tubuncular.'" Then, improvising frantically, she suggests that she may have been infected by a tuna sandwich. "That is some hellacious lying," Harry comments. Harry and Joan make for very good company, but they aren't the main focus of Love Song. They exist mainly to further draw into relief the strange, solitary existence of Beane, Joan's brother. Afflicted with an affect as flat as the Nebraska plains, he sits there like a lump, totally out of it while Harry and Joan trade witticisms. When he does speak, it's usually to make an inappropriate remark. He can't even complete the personality test that Harry tries to administer in a misfired attempt at isolating and explaining his problems. Whatever Beane's problems are, they must be serious; when we first meet him, he's sitting alone in his apartment, vainly chasing after a hanging lamp while the walls literally close in on him. Beane returns home to discover that his apartment has been invaded by a fetching, if tough-talking, burglar named Molly. Instead of admitting her guilt, she seizes the initiative, criticizing the sheer lack of the most basic necessities in his home. ("You don't have a fork! You don't have a plate! You eat out of a cup?") Naturally, after these remarks, it's love at first sight. Love makes Beane even stranger -- he forgets to shower, his conversation becomes even more bizarre -- making Joan especially wary, as well she should be. In scene after scene, Molly seems too good to be true, and, in fact, she is. I'm not going to reveal what happens next, because it's just about all that Love Song has to offer in the way of plot twists. I will point out, however, that, in its sentimental soft-pedaling of the horrors of mental illness and in its skimpy, anecdotal structure, Love Song, which starts out on such a bright note, fades fast; the finale, which tries to pass off Beane's obviously serious problems as just another form of loner-dom, is especially unsatisfying That Love Song remains watchable throughout its 90-minute running time is a tribute to the cast members, who, under Kolvenbach's rather skillful direction, find laughter and sadness in even the weakest passages. Ian Barford and Laura Latreille make an amusing double act as Harry and Joan; I especially enjoyed the devilish glint in Barford's eye as he watches his wife make a mess of that office phone call. Zoe Winters is an attention-getter as Molly, bringing some welcome intensity to her encounters with Beane. Best of all is Andrew Pastides, who, no matter what bromides the script is offering up, renders a quietly devastating portrait of Beane's scarred soul. The production, first seen at Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theatre in Gloucester, Massachusetts, also features a solid design package. Ji-Youn Chang's all-white setting, representing Beane's home, quickly converts to other locations, including Harry and Joan's apartment and a restaurant; Chang's lighting is fairly attractive, as well. Deborah Newhalls costumes are full of subtle character touches. Colin Whitely's sound design is similarly well done. But Love Song, like Beane, suffers from a certain attention deficit disorder; it jumps from scene to scene without really addressing the conflict at its core. It also ends on a thoroughly unearned note of affirmation. If Kolvenbach ever wants to take a really in-depth look at Beane's troubles, he'll have to reorder his priorities. As of now, Beane isn't getting the help he so sorely needs.--David Barbour 
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