LONDON-Love may or may not make the world go round, but it's certainly doing its bit for the London theater. On stages large and small, across new plays and revivals and musicals, too, the vagaries of passion are fueling one show after another. “Cantiamo D'Amore†â€" “we sing of love†â€" or so announces a number in “Kiss Me, Kate,†the Cole Porter musical that has been newly revived in a Trevor Nunn-directed production at the Old Vic that, truth be told, is a mixed bag.
But the assemblage in that song-and-dance chestnut by no means own the copyright at the moment on the vagaries of the heart. Whether Heather Headley's Rachel Marron in “The Bodyguard†is blasting out “I Will Always Love You†as an 11 o'clock number that has seemed an awfully long time coming, or the Parisian chanteuse (Anna Nicholas) in the altogether delightful “Boy Meets Boy†is crooning “Oh l'amour, l'amour,†passion is partout, as they say across the Channel, on the L ondon stage just now.
The extent of the emotions unleashed by love can be staggering to behold. At first glance, for instance, one hardly expects the prim-seeming, pancake-faced figure cut by Mark Rylance's Olivia to give way so giddily â€" bawdily, even â€" to the dictates of the heart. (I'm referring, of course, to the all-male “Twelfth Night,†which has taken up residency at the Apollo through Feb. 9 after a sellout preview period this past summer at Shakespeare's Globe.) But just watch as a figure all but immured in floor-length black throws caution to a very indecorous wind, Mr. Rylance by play's end all but falling about the stage in an erotic fury.
“Boy Meets Boy,†the period divertissement at the Jermyn Street Theatre through Dec. 20, is populated by what might seem a comparably buttoned-up gathering of swells who gravitate naturally toward the luxe of the Dorchester and the Sav oy. (And why not, given that we're talking 1936 and a sort of between-the-wars sybaritism.) But Gene David Kirk's affectionate production charts what happens when an expat American journalist and roué by the name of Casey (Stephen Ashfield, terrific) moves beyond matters sartorial to learn that love can, in fact, be about more than laughs: feeling runs deep, as Casey through a nearly-Shakespearean sequence of mistaken identities and disguises comes to learn, which in turn means putting frivolity to one side.
Reviving a show first seen Off Broadway in the 1970s, Mr. Kirk has mounted what could have been a mere curiosity at a 70-seat central London venue for a fraction of the cost of either “Kiss Me, Kate†or “The Bodyguard†to results that are consistently more beguiling than either of those (though “The Bodyguard,†to be fair, is all but done in by the intractability of its ludicrous source). What's lovely in “Boy Meets Boy†is the total lack of fuss made by a piece that takes gay marriage in its stride â€" and this from a 1975 musical, no less. But no less lovely is the about-face undergone by a hero who may tell us “never again will I fall in love†only to end up doing precisely that. And with a gusto that Mr. Rylance's Olivia would well understand.
Love's uncertainty, meanwhile, is the galvanic guiding force behind “The Effect,†the new Lucy Prebble play recently opened at the National. “I do love him, I think,†says Billie Piper's achingly febrile Connie, one of two subjects who have been brought in to test a powerful new anti-depressant under the watchful eye of two older doctors who were once themselves an item. Tom Goodman-Hill and Anastasia Hille play the medics, and very well (she, especially).
So, what then is Connie to make of the rush of emotions she feels towards Jonjo O'Neill's sparky, occasionally spiky Tristan, who in turn is so overtaken by love himself that he is briefly rendere d a song-and-dance man in order to accommodate his surging heart? (“I've Got You Under My Skin†is the musical accompaniment, in case you're wondering.)
Her first play since “Enron,†which was a London hit and subsequent New York flop, the far-superior “Effect†examines the causality of attraction with more humor than one might expect from a sometimes dry first half that includes a lengthy discourse delivered straight to the audience on the workings of the brain. (Hey, who says the theater can't educate as well as entertain?) But as the two couples come together and part to disorienting, well, effect, “The Effect†burrows painfully deep into behavioral realms that we assume to be beyond science. Or, in this case, maybe not.
The play, and Rupert Goold's matchless production of it, are talked about for a commercial transfer next year. How nice with the 2012 theater year not yet over that 2013 has already promised an opening to love.
