I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change, which ran last week at the Network Theatre, London, presents a sequence of comical vignettes of different stages of relationships and romance.
Highlighting the problems of relationships in capitalist society, the show immediately draws comparisons between gender roles and attitudes, with the men possessing overbearing egos, while the women are waiting at home for telephone calls, or for the final seconds of a football match to arrive.
The musical ran for 12 years off-Broadway in New York in 1996-2008. This production intertwines scenes of heterosexual and homosexual romance, expanding on the man versus woman framework of the original script, and by doing so, demonstrating the necessity for socialists to continue analysing the nature of family and of capitalism as not simply an economic structure, but as the basis for interpersonal relationships.
This was an entertaining and very funny amateur off-West-End production. Of particular note was Mark Wainwright’s hilarious portrayal of a Norman Bates-esque prison inmate; and the use of a single piano, played by Hannah Bailey (Act 1) and Oscar Deniham (Act 2), providing with depth and clarity the musical accompaniment, adding to the emotion and humour of the show.
• I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change. Book by Joe DiPietro, music by Jimmy Roberts. This production was directed by Owain Jones and Kristen Farebrother with musical direction from Oscar Deniham. At the Network Theatre, London 9-12 October
