Review: I Love You Because by Penfold Theatre Company
by Michael Meigs

Michael McKelvey set up his collaboration with Penfold Theatre and Andrew Cannata six months or more in advance, long before the announcement that he will be leaving Austin for Pennsylvania this coming fall.

Remembering their previous successes Five Years,Three Days of Rain and John and Jen, I arranged specially to return early from a family celebration in Houston in order to catch the show on Sunday, June 19.  When we turned up at the Hyde Park Theatre, we discovered the show had had a success beyond administrative expectations: we and many others received no programs for the production.

That was an inconvenience for a journalist but it probably made little difference to the crowd.  I Love You Because was a cheerful, cute and ironical-sentimental-comedic-up-tempo-musical on a shoestring, the perfect "date movie" -- but even better, because it was live theatre.

Boy loses girl - boy rebounds - brother counsels him on dating rules and techniques - guys do a double date to get back in the swim - things get serious - original girl wants to come back to boy - hearts pang - knowing cynical bartenders offer advice - boy has to choose.  No surprises here, either in plot or in character, but none were necessary.  This was an evening to cut loose your critical faculty and let it soar away,  while you enjoyed I Love You Because for the exuberance of the form, thanking your stars if you were not subject to the painful uncertainties of the courting dance in urban America.

And if you were -- well, then, afterward you could discuss these characters and situations with the significant other whom you brought to the theatre.  Such as, for example, why is a numbers-obsessed rules-follower always getting involved with a free spirit who drives him wild?  Why, in fact, can't a man and a woman be "just friends, naked together"?  If bartenders are so worldly wise and encouraging, why don't they rule the world?  And when it all comes down to making the Big Hard Choice, is the rules-follower going to follow his game plan or follow his heart?  (No points for guessing that one right!)

Andrew Cannata portrayed the rules-follower and Tyler Jones was his brother with all the false certainities about dating etiquette and women.  Haley Smith agreed to date Cannata, despite her better judgment, and she reluctantly captured him on second bounce.

Amy Downing was the woman buddy who took Jones on for friendly sex and found that her heart somehow got involved.

Stephen Jack and Sarah Marie Curry were the bartender/barista/delivery-guy general purpose players who in their cynicism and abandon were much more interesting figures than any of the four principals; after all, they had given up trying to work out the imponderables of the heart.

The strict confines of the Hyde Park Theatre didn't allow for an on-stage orchestra.  Accompaniment from keyboard and percussion came swelling out of backstage, giving the impression that a couple of musicians have been permanently confined in the bathroom or in the storeroom at the bar.  Was that McKelvey himself back there?  Without a program, we didn't know.  [Note: Penfold later sent the program -- click below to view it-- and in fact the keyboardist was Steve Suagey, with percussion by Trevor Detling.]

Penfold could probably have run this charming little show for another couple of weeks, but without a home of their own they had to shut it down strictly on schedule to make way for the regular HPT programming.  Their plans for future projects include some travel.  For their Round Rock outdoor production of Goldoni's A Servant of Two Masters in August, they'll also appear at the EmilyAnn Theatre amphitheatre in Wimberley.  In October and November they'll be back in the Hyde Park Theatre for four weekends, doing Ghosts in collaboration with the Breaking String Theatre.  That production will run for a full four weekends.

EXTRA

Click to view the program for I Love You Because (.pdf file furnished by Penfold Theatre)

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I Love You Because
by Joshua Salzman, Ryan Cunningham
Penfold Theatre Company