Sunday, February 11, 2007

Come Be My Love...Love Spoken Here (The SOB Overview) - Westport Country Playhouse, Westport, CT

Come Be My Love...Love Spoken Here (The SOB Overview) - Westport Country Playhouse, Westport, CT

Last evening, I was thrilled to be among the relative few fortunate enough to enjoy one of the loveliest, tastiest confections to come along in a long, long time.

Bigger than the largest chocolate kiss, this mega-bite Valentine was served up at Connecticut's venerable Westport Country Playhouse in the form of romantic poetry written by such giants as Maya Angelou, Noël Coward, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Langston Hughes, Dorothy Parker and William Shakespeare, among others.

What could possibly be any tastier than Come Be My Love...Love Spoken Here, last night's luscious seven course benefit at and for the Westport Country Playhouse. Indeed, the evening’s generous, heaping helpings of amore would have sated practically every kind of lover, including those not typically prone to enjoying liberal portions of the poetic verse.

Come Be My Love was no ordinary interpretation of poems and sonnets. No, what made this brilliant offering of both classic and modern odes to loves -- both requited and otherwise -- so jaw-droppingly spectacular was the way in which the seven stellar cast members made each work come alive with humor, humility, lots of humanity and most of all, heart.

Miraculously amassed for this one-time-only event, Joanna Gleason, Charles Grodin, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Eartha Kitt, Paul Newman, Chris Sarandon and Joanne Woodward offered their own unique, individual voices on the ecstasy and agony that arguably make love life’s ultimate affection. Wow!

To call this breathtaking would be a major understatement. With the megawatt cast’s refrains reverberating throughout the theatre, this audience member was left reeling as though Cupid had shot another arrow through his heart. Alternately laughing and misty-eyed, I couldn’t help but ponder just how truly blessed I am to have found the love of my life, my own true love.

Although it’s a little heartbreaking to know that this night will never again be repeated for wider audiences, this lovely evening will long be remembered by my Valentine and me as we toast how fortunate we are, in life and in love.

This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).

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