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The first play of International City Theatre’s new season — “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change” by Joe DiPietro with music by Jimmy Roberts — is an unexpected blast. Funny, sometimes poignant and filled with lively singing by a talented cast of four accompanied by on-stage piano and violin music, it’s perfect for couples, singles or friends’ night out.
That’s because anyone who’s in, was in, or has ever tried to be in a romantic relationship will immediately recognize themselves. The play consists of a series of skits, each of which sends up an aspect of modern relationships— from dating to marriage to kids — in skewering ways, and sometimes meaningful ways as well.
All the while, music director Daniel Gary Busby on piano with Joe Buzzelli on violin provide immersive and lyrical music to accompany the songs, occasionally getting involved in the action.
The four actors playing Woman #1 (Erika Schindele), Woman #2 (Whitney Kathleen Vigil), Man #1 (Will Riddle, last seen locally as Buddy Holly) and Man #2 (Michael Deni) lay themselves bare, sometimes literally, through costume changes and becoming a variety of characters.
The series of vignettes they portray roughly follows the arc of most relationships but first goes back to Adam and Eve before segueing into a modern couple’s first date, or rather first, second and third dates that they decide to skip in the interest of time and their busy schedules.
We also get comically lamentable dates with “A Stud and a Babe,” sung by a non-stud and non-babe, women compelled to lie in “Single Man Draught,” and “Tear Jerk” in which a guy who likes action flicks gets emotionally sucked into his female partner’s tear-jerker movie.
While some of these scenarios are familiar, some are outlandish, as in “Hey There, Single Gal/Guy,” in which a dating service uses the assistance of an imprisoned mass murderer to get couples to commit, and a hilarious scene in which the parents of a young man are super ready to celebrate his engagement only to hear of his and his partner’s breakup.
There are also sweet stories celebrating the subtle beauty of love as in “I Will Be Loved Tonight” — in which a couple awkwardly decides to take the next step — and “Shouldn’t I Be Less in Love With You,” featuring a middle-aged couple at the breakfast table. A potential relationship between an older man and woman who meet at a funeral in “I Can Live With That” is both amusing and poignant.
All four actors excel in portraying more than a dozen different characters, necessitating aerobically quick costume changes (no doubt keeping costume designer Kimberly DeShazo busy) and transforming into new personalities while delivering amazing singing, each shining in different ways in different scenes.
Schindele is especially acerbic as the mom of the non-engaged man. Deni is especially droll in “On the Highway of Love” as a father who becomes more dangerously masculine when driving, enacted by all four family members rolling in a “car” made of wheeled chairs. And Riddle and Vigil embrace the sheer physicality of “Marriage Tango,” about parents eager to have sex despite numerous interruptions by their young children.
First performed off-Broadway in the late 1990s, and set in the early 2000s, some scenes are getting a bit dated, such as a woman overjoyed that her man actually calls when he says he will (“He Called Me”), though these days he would probably text or DM. And all the relationships depicted in the play are heterosexual and also monoracial, which seems anachronistic today.
But overall, “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change” is a refreshing delight, thanks to this production’s talented cast and musicians, expertly directed by Barry Pearl (who himself played a T-Bird in the 1978 film “Grease”). Whether you’re in a relationship or not, you’ll be entertained by the stories, songs and humor in these timelessly human depictions of men and women.
International City Theatre’s “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change” continues at the Beverly O’Neill Theater, 330 E. Seaside Way, with shows Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. For tickets and information, call the box office at 562-436-4610 or visit ICTLongBeach.org. Run time is 2 hours and 15 minutes, including intermission.