Moonlight & Love Songs

Written by Scott C. Sickles

Directed by David Gautschy

Workshop Theater Company, Main Stage

312 West 36th Street, 4th Floor

212-695-4173

 

Review by Gena Hymowech

 

In Moonlight & Love Songs, Scott C. Sickles has created an original love story that is sexy, controversial, funny, thought-provoking and sad. The drama centers on a gay teen whose lies for love lead to drastic consequences.

 

Jim (Ryan Tresser) is a promiscuous, hunky student who falls for Harry (Jeff Woodman), a nerdy, middle-aged architect. While they seem an unlikely pair, the romance is believable thanks to the actors’ outstanding chemistry. The play is particularly refreshing in its treatment of the love scenes, which are depicted with realism without being graphic. Harry and Jim’s love is grounded in the real world, but it is punctuated by a beautiful, cinematic quality, which neatly ties in with the fact that both characters love classic movies. (The show takes its title from a lyric in Casablanca’s “As Time Goes By.”) Their picturesque love story falls apart, however, when Harry learns that Jim has been lying to him the whole time, forcing Harry to cope with Jim’s deception and the resulting legal issues.

 

Romantically Challenged: Nicole Taylor, Jeff Woodman and Jeff Paul in Scott C. Sickles's Moonlight & Love Songs.

 

Though Moonlight & Love Songs sparkles with originality, the play as a whole suffers from a lack of scenery, a few implausible events and an unnecessary side-plot involving Jim’s father. Moreover, Sickles’s decision to place blame on Harry is incongruous with the rest of the story; despite his lies, Harry seems more the victim than the villain. The brilliance of the script and acting, however, make all of this easy to overlook. Moonlight succeeds because Sickles clearly understands a difficult truth: that while we may want the kind of romance we see in movies, the kind filled with moonlight and love songs, we live in the real world, which rarely gives us a Hollywood ending.