Nicole J. Butler, Julie Dove, Gloria Ines Back Pamella Pearl and Julia Manis (Photo by Kelli Dawn Hancock)
Reviewed by F. Kathleen Foley
Sawyer’s Playhouse
Through Aug. 30
RECOMMENDED
There’s an inherent problem with Love, Loss and What I Wore, currently playing at Sawyer’s Playhouse in North Hollywood. The show assumes women have a near-fetishistic preoccupation with their clothing — the perfect blouse, the slinky skirt, the knee-high boots that tie the whole look together.
That’s a false supposition, as I can personally attest. However, even if you are largely indifferent to all matters sartorial, there’s much to like about this slight but enjoyable entertainment.
Love, Loss and What I Wore (the title’s Oxford comma comes and goes, depending on the production) was written by sisters and frequent collaborators, Nora and Delia Ephron, who specialized in light-hearted fare, most typically for the screen. Nora, who passed away in 2012, wrote When Harry Met Sally, which tops “best of” critics’ lists as one of the greatest romantic comedies ever filmed. She and Delia also paired up to write You’ve Got Mail, another popular rom-com.
What I Wore is based on the 1995 autobiographical memoir by Ilene Beckerman, who traced her personal history through various outfits she’d worn at memorable moments in her life. For the 2009 play, which enjoyed a healthy run off-Broadway and has been perennially produced since then, the Ephron sisters expanded Beckerman’s book to include other female characters whose recollections range from the comedic (a mother’s gift of an atrocious ensemble that makes her daughter a laughingstock) to the grim (a rape that robs the victim of her joy in sexy clothing.)
The show is typically presented as reader’s theater, with rotating casts and the actors on book. This production, staged by prolific director Dana Schwartz, retains that format, with different casts performing weekly. The night I attended, the ensemble included Julie Dove, Julia Manis, Pamella Pearl, and Gloria Ines, who switched back and forth among a variety of characters. As the women describe their ensembles—backdrops to memorable moments from their pasts— Kyli Walls’s delightfully simplistic renderings flash upstage, mirroring the referenced attire.
The sole unchanging character is Gingy (Nicole J. Butler), an interlocutor who sits on the sidelines and tells us about her childhood, the early loss of her mother, and her many marriages, all delineated by the clothing she connects with each important passage of her life
When it comes to dramatic heft, the stories themselves can be negligible, while Schwartz’s staging hits some snags, including having the actors periodically switch their seats — a sort of musical chairs that may be intended to enliven the action but simply seems cumbersome. And having the performers repeatedly adjust the music stand that holds the script for their various monologues is unnecessary and fussy, while the deafening interstitial music should be taken down a notch.
However, these are minor shortcomings that hardly detract from the overall charm of this surprisingly feministic play, which demonstrates the strong commonalities that women share, even over something as simple as the clothes we wear.
Sawyer’s Playhouse, 11031 Camarillo St., North Hollywood. Sat., 7 pm, Sun., 2 pm; thru Aug. 30. https://seeourshow.ludus.com/index.php Runtime: 85 minutes with no intermission.
