LUV . . . a month's worth of laughter stuffed into two acts
LUV
Reviewed by Jeffrey R Smith of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle
Has the value of your adobe Quonset hut slumped from the high $90,000s to the low $70,000s?
Did you ignore your Ouija Board's advice to buy Bear Stearns at $2 a share last Monday and sell it at $10 a share on Friday?
Did you finally bust $100 filling up your Honda Civic?
Did a perfect stranger correctly guess your age? Your weight? Or your net worth?
Did your doggie lap up that Viagra you accidentally dropped and turn your antique goatskin settee into a love seat?
Did your teenage daughter recently insist, with lachrymose eyes, that she was Pro-Life?
Has a wine taster told you that your homegrown Chardonnay would make an excellent salad dressing or an effective engine degreaser?
If any of these mini tragedies have tumbled onto your gabardine-cloaked lap then you have serious need of comedy in your life.
Currently the relocated ACTORS THEATRE of San Francisco is performing what is indisputably the funniest comedy in town: Murray Schisgal's outrageous LUV.
Jean Shelton directs Ann Hopkins (Ellen), Scott Agar Jaicks (Milt) and Christian Phillips (Harry) in this existential comedy and sustained riot of nonsense.
Imagine: comedy that you can understand without reading the papers or listening to the news or NPR.
Imagine effortless, mindless comedy that makes you laugh without having to think.
Visualize laughter without cerebration—what ever that means.
Think of comedy that does not hinge on running down political candidates or easy targets like incumbents.
On the comic spectrum, LUV lies somewhere between Christoher Durang's wacky BEYOND THERAPY and Woody Allen's genre of self-absorbed puerile neurotics as in SHADOW AND FOG or DECONSTRUCTING HARRY.
This play is a jewel.
Like some of the best things in San Francisco, this show is more than a block from the cable car.
Two of San Francisco's greatest comedians—Chris Phillips and Scottie Jaicks—will have you in stitches.
WARNING: If you are over 60, wear your incontinence shorts.
If you are under 60, better tone-up with some aerobic Kegal exercises.
If they weren't great comedians before launching this show, they are now.
Somebody, perhaps the director—Jean Shelton—has taught them what's funny and how to wring laughter out of a good script such as Schisgal's (if you don't remember, Schisgal is the guy who wrote TOOTSIE).
Chris's comedy is in his delivery: timing, inflection, nuanced pauses, etc. etc.
Scottie's schtick is physical comedy: expression, posture, gestures, movement, stance, even foot placement: no offense to the man, but without a word, Scottie looks funny.
These guys are not a team like Martin and Lewis, they are more like Lewis and Lewis: both hilarious with a synergy that puts them over the top.
If laughter is indeed the best medicine, then LUV is the entire apothecary taken with acupuncture needles stuck into your funny bones.
LUV is performed at 855 Bush, a block and a half over from Powell.
For tickets call the box office at 415-345-1287.
Admit it: you missed Dean and Jerry when they were playing the Jersey Shore; so don't miss Chris and Scottie when they're doing Bush.
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