A Romantic Comedy that Goes Around the Globe

A romance that whirls halfway around the world, “Roundelay: A Comedy” skips back and forth from America to India, Kenya and the Caribbean as its multicultural characters either pursue love or run away from it. The Passage Theater Company’s production of R. N. Sandberg’s new play at the Mill Hill Playhouse in Trenton offers a pleasant, if somewhat hectic, sojourn with 10 individuals of varying ethnicities who all yearn for love.

The most adventurous is Tony, a young American of European descent, who recklessly flies off to India to rendezvous with the lovely Priya, whom he knows only hazily from their passionate online connection. Strangely oblivious to Tony’s pending visit, Priya contends with an unwanted marriage proposal from Gupta, a nice if stodgy doctor, and impulsively decides to take a trip to a seaside resort in Kenya. 

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Romantic Comedies that are Considered Classic

                   

The romantic comedy, or “rom-com”, has become a staple genre in which Hollywood can perpetuate upon couples, yearning for a breezy date. But, there is an inherent problem with the modern day romantic comedy. From the start, the film is not the question of whether or not the two gorgeous looking stars will get together, but how they will get together. The formula inevitably brings forth the structure of the two stars either meeting in a cute way or in a precarious situation. Then the relationship goes through its ups and downs as the leading lady will probably fall down in a “hilarious”, slapsticky way, while the guy probably takes off his shirt.

Then again, this was exactly the structure that some of the best romantic comedies of all time, from “The Apartment” to “Bringing Up Baby”, have followed. The question then becomes, why modern day “rom-coms” feel so contrived nowadays. It could simply be because the screenwriters of those movies try to appeal to the common denominator. These films, like fairy tales, are an escape from everyday life in which it is easy to meet the perfect man or woman at the top of the Empire State Building.

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The Latest Expansion on Hollywood's Romantic Comedy

   

Hugh Grant's latest venture into the romantic comedy genre already has a pretty impressive bunch of actors lined up, with Marisa Tomei, Allison Janney and Bella Heathcote already set to star, but now the project has landed two more great names to the cast.

J.K. Simmons and Chris Elliott, according to The Hollywood Reporter, have both signed on for roles in the Marc Lawrence-written and directed untitled film, which is currently aiming to start production in April. The trade notes that the film begins back in 1998 and centers on a character named Ray Michaels (Grant), a Hollywood screenwriter at the top of his game having just won an Academy Award. Unfortuantely, 15 years later he's left flat broke, divorced and without any ideas for new scripts. In order to just keep himself afloat he signs up to teach a screenwriting class at a small East Coast college, and winds up falling in love with one of his older students (Tomei) - a single mom who has gone back to school.  

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Increasing Romantic Comedy Films for Men

                      

Cinema has seen some interesting thematic changes over the past decade. The rise of 3D is one; the dominance of dark, brooding heroes in morally complex tales another. For a third, you could probably argue for the endless stream of sequels, prequels and spinoffs that dominate the multiplexes. But today, I’d like to talk about a more subtle development, and one that you might not have noticed. Today, I’d like to talk about the new recent direction of romanctic films, and about the Rise of the ManCom (and no, that’s not the title of the next Transformers movie).

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a sucker for a love story. Not any love story, mind – I’d much rather drink vomit from my shoes than watch The Notebook, or be kicked in the balls repeatedly over watching anything starring Sarah Jessica Parker. Romantic cinema needs to be more than emotional manipulation, or heartless, soulless stereotyping. It needs to tap into something more.

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'Different Animals' Shows Unique Romantic Dynamic

Tickets are now on sale for Upright Citizens Brigade alum Abby Rosebrock’s debut off-Broadway comedy Different Animals. The show opens on April 20 at the Cherry Lane Theater.

Playwright Rosebrock also stars alongside rising comics Cesa Pledger, Dirk Keysser, Brady Kirchberg, Maria Panoski and Sienna Sternick. The show will be directed by Bruce Ornstein.

Different Animals revolves around Jessica Tarver (Pledger), a rom-com devotee who finds herself with a failed business venture, disappointing marriage and adulterous Olive Garden tryst in a small South Carolina town. Also along for the ride are her husband Leo (Keysser), his unstable bisexual companion Molly (Rosebrock) and Jessica’s liberal activist Lutheran pastor friend William (Kirchberg).

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'For Love' Breeds a Dark, Blue Romantic Comedy

After recent excursions into Americana with the radio play of “It’s a Wonderful Life,” rural nostalgia with “Donnybrook!” and 20th-century institutional repression with “Airswimming,” the Irish Repertory Theater switches into high contemporary gear with “For Love,” a riotously tart and fiercely energetic production that opened on Tuesday. Billed as a “dark blue romantic comedy,” the play — a dramedy, really, only fleetingly romantic — plunges straight into Ireland’s fraught urban present.  

Consider the opening scene: A couple drunkenly stagger into an apartment — the woman clinging to a drink — and collapse on the floor, intent on sloppy, impassioned lovemaking. But the fellow blacks out, and the woman loudly curses, enraged at her unconscious date. Then she passes out. And there you have it: “For Love,” a portrait of women in their mid-30s struggling in recession-ravaged Dublin, might be called “Bad Sex and the City.” But that would be reductive. It is much, much more. 

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Cup of Coffee Heats Up Romance

If you love Tim Hortons, you’ll feel right at home during the world premiere of playwright Ken Brown’s new romantic comedy Double Double.

Directed by Michael Clark of Workshop West, Double Double sees two single parents Nell (Linda Grass) and Kevin (Jon Paterson) sneaking a few stolen moments together at their favourite Tim Hortons hangout.

Guido Tondino and Victoria Zimski’s set design was sponsored by Tim Hortons and looks like one of their coffee shops, right down to the tables and chairs.

If you’re interested in seeing a romantic comedy Canadian style – not under starry skies ’cause it’s too cold – but sipping a cuppa joe, check out Double Double playing at La Cité Francophone from March 22 to April 7.

Showtime is 7:30 p.m. Tickets range from $20 to $25. Call 780-477-5955 or online at www.workshopwest.org.

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Romantic Comedy Without a Heart

                   

MILLVILLE — “Rudy and Ruby” is not your typical romantic comedy. In fact, its title character is missing a key ingredient — a heart.

The play tells the tale of a small theater company strapped for cash and struggling to stay in business. It’s headlined by its main character, a robot, who in his attempt to salvage the arts, endures his fair share of complications.

“Rudy and Ruby,” a play about a play, is not only presented by the Bethany Area Repertory Theatre (BART) and Dickens Parlour Theatre but also delves into similar hurdles local production companies must regularly conquer. 

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Romantic Twist for the 'Flower Girl'

Kemi (26) works in her parent’s flower shop and she dreams of becoming one of the happy married couples she sees everyday. Her long time lawyer boyfriend Umar (28) has promised to marry her when he gets a promotion but she is growing impatient. Still living with her embarrassing parents, she spends her nights in her room, planning the wedding she hopes someday to have.

Then comes the day that she has been waiting for, Umar has got the promotion! However, when she arrives expecting a big proposal, he breaks up with her. Devastated she goes on a delivery and unable to see where she is going through grief, she is hit by a car. The driver turns out to be Tunde Kulani the famous Nollywood movie star.

She follows Tunde’s instructions as best as she can but has a lot to learn. He decides to change her appearance if she is going to be seen with him. Sneaking out to avoid paparazzi they tackle her clothes, her hair, etiquette and then he teaches her to dance. At the end of a long day he drops her off at home and her parents make him join them for dinner. Kemi is uncomfortable as they comment on how much better Tunde is than Bola.

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'I Give It a Year' Gives a Fresh Romantic Look

AUSTIN - Dan Mazer has built a career based on a very particular type of humor. As a writer/producer, he's been involved in "Da Ali G Show," "Borat," "Bruno," and "The Dictator," and he's helped define Sacha Baron Cohen's public persona in the process. Now with his first feature film as a writer/director, he's turned his attention to the Working Title romantic comedy formula, and "I Give It A Year" manages to parody the structure of those films while playing as an actual one at the same time. No easy feat, that, and I was surprised by how well Mazer manages the balancing act.

Josh (Rafe Spall) and Nat (Rose Byrne) meet, fall in love, and tie the knot all within seven months of meeting one another, and from the very start, their marriage seems like a bad fit. It would be easy to make one of them the bad guy in this film to make it clear whose fault things are, but Mazer instead paints both of them as decent people who simply might not be suited for each other. The weakest element in the film is a structure that involves both of them talking to a marriage counsellor played by the great Olivia Colman, and those scenes play like they're cut in from another movie. The actual day-to-day struggle between Josh and Nat is written well, and it's only gradually that Mazer starts to bring in Chloe (Anna Faris) and Guy (Simon Baker), who seem like far better-suited partners to Josh and Nat.

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Modern Interpretation on 'Much Ado About Nothing'

 

There this moment in Much Ado About Nothing where the happy romantic comedy turns on its head, becoming something incredibly dark. Claudio throws Hero to the ground and accuses her of lies and harlotry and nothing can be the same. Sides are taken. Words are unleashed that cannot be retained. It’s awful and everything after it is colored by it. It gives the play these massive stakes, but at a cost to Shakespeare’s resplendent farce.
 
More than one director has tasked himself with handling that shift in tone gracefully, but most tend to sort of gloss over it, mining the moment for its darkness and then swiftly moving back to the happy fun times and blissfully ignoring the tragedy that gives the play its stakes.

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Romantic Comedy in a 'Shooting Star'

 

REUNITED AIRLINES – Former lovers Elena (Liz Luizzi) and Redd (Marcus Luizzi) cross paths, and sometimes swords, at a Midwest airport in Barnstable Comedy Club’s Shooting Star.

Bumping into an old flame decades later may turn out to be, as Bette Davis would say, “a bumpy night.”

And it’s just that in Shooting Star, Steven Dietz’s bittersweet romantic comedy playing at the Barnstable Comedy Club.

Former college sweethearts Reed McAllister and Elena Carson are thrown together when they are bumped from their respective flights by a snowstorm. Their chance meeting at a Midwest airport is a funny and sad nostalgia trip that ignites romance and regret. They haven’t seen each other in 30 years and the ex-lovers carry a lot of emotional baggage. At first they engage in idle chitchat, but as the evening wears on old hurts and feelings surface.

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Poking Fun on Musical Comedies

Theater aficionados will recognize many of the songs and scenes in the parody musical comedy, “The Musical of Musicals: The Musical.”

Many references from famous Broadway shows can be found in the show, which opens Friday at Theater Works. The production spoofs “Oklahoma,” “Phantom of the Opera,” “Into the Woods” and “Chicago,” among others.

“This musical plays on so many levels and those not on a musical theater level will love it for the silliness,” said Steve Hilderbrand, director.


“It takes the usual plot and does it in a lot styles.”

“The Musical of Musicals” revolves around the basic plot of four characters and different vignettes, but with the same theme, “I can pay the rent.”

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Romantic Comedy in Reverse Standards

 

It’s always uncomfortable to watch married people fight. In a perfect world they would be the happiest among us, as they’ve found someone to love and cherish for as long as they both shall live – a pretty damn good thing. But then reality kicks in with the fact that just because people share a pair of rings doesn’t make them dreamily happy. This is the driving idea behind I Give It A Year, a new kind of romantic comedy that delves into the idea that just because a couple decides get married doesn’t mean they should necessarily be together.

The feature directorial debut of Dan Mazer, who also wrote the script, the story follows the relationship of Josh (Rafe Spall) and Nat (Rose Byrne), who decide to get married despite nothing but protest from their friends and family. Following the ceremony their relationship almost immediately starts to show cracks, as the two snipe at each other about misheard song lyrics and taking out the trash, but their issues are only exacerbated by a handsome new client at Nat’s office named Guy (Simon Baker), and Josh’s best friend and former girlfriend Chloe (Anna Faris).

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'A Little Night Music' Sets on Stage West

                    

It isn't often that New York theater critics go gaga over a Broadway musical, but they did after the 1973 opening of Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music, considered by many to be his masterpiece — and that is saying a lot.

The Sunday News' Douglas Watt called it "exquisite — something special, remote, elegant." The New York Times' Clive Barnes said it was "heady, civilized, sophisticated, and enchanting" and compared it with Dom Perignon Champagne. The New Yorker's Brendan Gill went straight to the top: "A Little Night Music comes close to being the perfect romantic musical comedy."

It won five Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Book and Best Original Score, and six Drama Desk Awards, including Outstanding Book and Music. It even won a Grammy for Best Musical Show album.

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'Never the Bridesmaid' was Never About Her

 

Never the Bridesmaid probably isn't the most accurate title for Polarity Ensemble Theatre's world premiere romantic comedy by Bill Jepsen. Sure, there is a much-married character, but the play isn't solely about her.

After being widowed once and divorced twice, quirky thirty-something Maria (Lindsey Pearlman) is cautious about entering into new relationships. But the play often focuses more on Maria's literary scholar twin brother, Anthony (Nick Lake), who is still coping with being dumped by his fiancée four years ago.

These siblings' unlucky attempts at love are only highlighted by still living at home with their happy, routine-loving parents named Doris (Daria Harper) and Elmer (Steve Pringle), who are nearing their 40th wedding anniversary. (The two also appear to love 1980s pink and turquoise color schemes, since the living room set by designer Charles C. Palia, Jr. brings to mind the old TV logo for Miami Vice.)

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The Sassy Side of Cinderella

 

Maybe you’ve seen the ads for Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Cinderella.” They are everywhere, without fail. That’s because putting this show on Broadway is a first. “Cinderella” was written for TV in 1957, and then remade a couple of times. The most famous version was with Lesley Ann Warren. Now it comes to Broadway as a live show at last. I didn’t know what it would be: for children? moldy? something out of the 50s?

Well, the big surprise is that “Cinderella” has been refashioned for 2013. Douglas Carter Beane took a hacksaw to the old script and made the new one sassy, bouncy, and a little snarky. He’s still retained the romantic core. But let’s face it. We know this story by heart. And by now, to tell it straight would send adults to the sleeping bags. So Beane has inserted humor and twists, made everyone involved a little savvy, and wiser. By the time the second act finishes, you’re even feeling sympathetic toward the evil Stepmother (played to hilarious effect by the great Harriet Harris).

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Colin Farrell Targets Romantic Comedies

 

One would think that with the revenge drama Dead Man Down, as well as his recent decision to star with Jessica Chastain in an adaptation of Miss Julie, Colin Farrell’s desire to star in a romantic comedy would be seen as a total joke.

During a recent interview, Farrell said he was open to stepping into lighter fare, and a well written romantic comedy would actually suit his tastes. 

“I do think light appeals to me more,” said Farrell, who will also be seen later this year opposite Tom Hanks in Saving Mr. Banks.  

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Another Side of Hillsborough Playwright

More than a year ago, as he was preparing for the off-Broadway premiere of his romantic comedy “Two Sides of Love,” playwright Tom Baldinger felt his play was good enough to reach a wider audience.

Now Baldinger has set his sights on the silver screen. “Two Sides of Love” is being optioned as a film by an independent production company based in Los Angeles.

Baldinger realizes that the path from “option” to “film” can be long and tortuous; it might not even come to fruition. But he is pleased that a work of his has generated that much interest.

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Explosive Romance Comedy at 7 Stages

 

7 Stages’ first production under the leadership of Artistic Director Heidi S. Howard and Managing Director Mack Headrick is Atlanta playwright Topher Payne’s explosive comedy/drama “Angry Fags,” running through March 17.

This is a play that is already stirring a bit of controversy, partly because of the title.  For example, WABE radio’s Myke Johns, in an interview with the playwright, mentions that “we can’t say the title on the radio.”

The fearless, prolific Mr. Payne is well aware of this; he comments on the power of the word in a telling essay in the theatre program.  I think he would agree, in principle at least, with the late Gore Vidal, who once said, “Words are our masters, a lot more than deeds.”  And, like Madonna, Mr. Payne is not afraid of causing a commotion.

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Romantic Comedy that Time-travels

 

DEARBORN — Travel through time with the cast of Bernard Slade’s romantic comedy “Return Engagements” at the Players Guild of Dearborn during the show’s three weekend run March 1 to 3, 8 to 10 and 15 to 17, with 8 p.m. shows Fridays and Saturdays and 2:30 p.m. Sunday matinees. For tickets, call 1-313-561-TKTS, and go to www.playersguildofdearborn.org for show times and more information.

Slade, who authored “Same Time, Next Year” and “Romantic Comedy,” once again shows how his characters change over time.

Directed by Mike Moseley of Allen Park, “Return Engagements” initially spotlights three couples: A tipsy actress and a bellboy who have just had a one-night stand; a strong-willed Polish woman who survived World War II and the man whose baby she hopes to conceive, and an acerbic columnist and his aloof psychotherapist wife who are about to end their relationship.

Audiences then see what happened to the couples 20, 25 and 30 years later, the path their lives followed and how their stories intersect.

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