by Geoff Hoff

eLove, a Musical.com/edy is described in the press release as a “cyber love story where a man and a woman, searching for that ’special online someone’, discover that love in the internet reveals a little more than either one had expected.”  It is a typical boy meets girl, boy almost loses girl, boy gets girl story (complete with an unexpected plot twist), although the boy and girl in this case, refreshingly, are almost senior citizens.

I’m sure the author would disagree with this description, but I see eLove as a frothy musical about the on-line meeting and (thankfully condensed) five hour cyber-conversation between an obviously classy woman, the assistant manager at a restaurant, and an accountant, a fairly despicable but charming fellow given to manipulation, excessive drinking and bouts of unfounded jealous rage.

The set, by Chris Winfield, depicts two singles apartments that are almost mirror images of each other, right down to the goldfish in a bowl on her writing desk and the turtle in a bin on his.  The play is almost entirely staged, by director Cate Caplin, in such a way that both the eGirl, played by Bobbi Stamm, and the eBoy, played by Lloyd Pedersen, are almost constantly in the mirror image spot in their respective domiciles, doing mirror image things, meant to symbolize, I imagine, how incredibly perfect they are for each other.

At the beginning of the play last night, in its world premier at the Victory Theatre Center, the author/composer, the very charming Wayland Pickard, said, “If you’re expecting a night of dark, depressing drama, you’re in the wrong theatre,” which was accurate.  It is, then, unfair to burden the play with such psychological analysis, but as the play unfolded, I became more and more uncomfortable with the notion that some women (some men, also) are so desperate to be with someone that they’ll completely ignore all the red flags and dive into a relationship with someone “fun” who is obviously bad news.

While the play seems to move you inevitably toward the very romantic desire to see these two come together as the fates demand, I wanted to scream, “run, pull the plug, sever your Internet connection, move to another city, this guy is poison.  You know it!  You’ll have two weeks of fun and three years of pain, humiliation and heartache.  Just like you did with the last guy!  Wake up, you’re better than that.”  But it would be impolite to shout in a theatre where everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves so much.

The play starts with both people creating profiles on the dating site eLove, both fudging the truth a bit, although he more egregiously then she.  His screen name is “Hard Drive”.  She says she’s in shape, because “round” is a shape.  Then, once the site matches them, they have an on-line chat where they both bash their exes, in song, of course, it is a musical, although her complaints are in the “he never listened to me, only to himself” vein and his are in the “she was a tramp with in-bred relatives” variety.

The script is witty and the music is amiable if not inspiring.  Both performers have good voices and are good actors.  The choreography, also by director Cate Caplin, is simple and as effective as it could be on the small stage.  It was produced by Sideways SmileyFace Productions in association with the Victory Theatre Center.

The play is performed Saturdays at 8 pm and Sundays at 4 pm through Sunday, March 29th, 2009.

The Victory Theatre Center is located at 3326 W. Victory Blvd., just east of N. Hollywood Way in Burbank, CA  91505

Ticket prices: $25.00 with discounts for Seniors, Students and Groups.

Reservations online at www.theatermania.com or by phone at (866) 811-4111