SD Fringe: Will You Swear Your True Love and The Heart of a Goof

Will You Swear Your True Love Direct from Japan, Theatre Group GUMBO’s world premiere is a comedy of crazy Japanese lovers motivated by their own quirky views on distorted love.

The crazy-love spectrum in this allegory reveals the inconsistent and incongruous aspects of human behavior. According to the loosely structured scenario, two fairies live in the Forest of Truth (à la Midsummer Night’s Dream) and make couples love each other using their father’s special potion. It’s made from the extract of True Love, but it is soon to run out. So the fairies find a man and woman to get lost in this forest and fall in love.

Will You Swear could be described as kabuki meets The Mikado meets Rashomon — the modern version.

The group boasts five superb actors, who all contributed to the script and who sometimes use balletic and often athletic movement patterns, bounding about the stage like talented samurais.

Masterfully directed by Kayo Tamura, who also acts in this boisterous show, the other performers are Rhyo Nishihara, Nono Miyasaka, and Hidefumi Oshiro. The costumes are works of wonder and intricate design but are sadly uncredited. Though it drags a bit during the last ten minutes, and the ending is quite anticlimactic, this is a treat for the senses.

The Heart of a Goof Green Raven Theatre presents John Anderson’s original adaptation of many golf stories written by British author P.G. Wodehouse, chiefly remembered for his Wooster and Jeeves stories and 1920s musicals.

The Oldest Member, who narrates our story in this diverting production, is played by John Rosen as a good-natured old duffer. He realizes that the game of golf is a metaphor for the game of life. It is a great turn, straight from the English music hall.

The whole cast gives the play great style. Bill Shore, playing the dapper young golf enthusiast, gives just enough of the reserved Englishman to give the play its singularly British tone.

John Anderson — who directed with wonderful panache — plays a fussy old billionaire constantly interfering in the young peoples’ romance. He has a charming faux elegance. Is he genuine? No. Delightful? Yes.

But Brandy Lacy’s the true star of the piece. As Barbara Medway, she’s the epitome of an energetic, sort of stuffy young matron desperate for love. Lacy gives a bright and spirited performance.

Anastasia Pautova’s marvelous costumes have a great, late 1920s feel (she dresses Lacy to perfection).

The adaptation by the indefatigable Anderson, while creative, does not do complete justice to the Wodehouse material. Some of it is extremely funny and some verges on boring.