“Love Sick” at Theatre J is a ravishing mix of the sacred and profane, awash in pomegranate-scented dreams of budding and satiated desire, on many levels.
This is lush, deeply felt work that will reward an audience with a different type of theatrical experience—one that stirs the imagination and reminds us of how much power the poetry of words can bring to our lives.
With a smaller cast than you’d expect for such a vibrant celebration of love (seven actors and eight musicians; Ali Paris is listed as both), this new musical asks the audience to put away preconceived notions of what a musical should be and really listen to and feel this.
The Song of Songs, aka Song of Solomon, is the foundation for this imagining of a story surrounding the verses. We have a young woman married off to a much older man (a generation older) who is stagnating. But she does her duty by her husband and his young sons. Then one day—magic happens—a note is left outside their house in Jerusalem by an anonymous admirer and she comes to life. Suddenly there are possibilities of joy.
For in this note are written words she has never dreamed could be about her—words of desire and longing and the celebration of the body and the soul when joined as sacred one. Tirzah (Ofra Daniel), the young wife, begins to feel her power as a woman and to question the status quo of her traditional society.
That status quo is ecstactically represented by the Women of Jerusalem—a quartet of actors all making their Theatre J debut—Kara-Tameika Watkins, Kanysha Williams, Sara Laughland, and Sarah Corey. The Husband is played by Sasha Olinick; he is stolid and at a loss as to how to be married to a younger woman. He also has a deeply resonant voice that is hypnotic.
In this musical, no one has names except for Tirzah; not even her lover (Ali Paris), is given a name. This is, first and foremost, a story of a woman’s awakening to her sexuality and her own feminine humanity.
“Love Sick” is written and adapted by Ofra Daniel, the founder, and artistic and executive director of the Jewish Circle Theatre in the San Francisco Bay area. The winner of several Bay Area awards, this is the first full production on the East Coast. The music is by Daniel and Lior Ben-Hur, and the two give full voice to the words of the Song of Songs, as well as the additional music that provides bridges between the actual ancient text.
Even if one is not well-versed in the Bible, one understands this young woman’s life and choices through the music. From feeling like a failure at everything (she’s not good at housework, can’t really cook, etc.), she begins to realize that she, made in God’s image, is enough as is. Could her lover be Solomon himself? Could he be a shepherd who longs to touch her long black hair and caress her lips and cheeks and neck and arms? As the letters keep coming, she throws off more of the shackles of her daily life and falls drunk in love with possibility.
As Tirzah says to the Women of Jerusalem, ‘I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles, and by the hinds of the field, that ye awaken not, nor stir up love, until it please.’ It is a warning and a yearning in one—sumptuously sung and danced.
At times, the arc of the show reminded me a bit of ‘Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well in Paris’—it is an unconventional musical that tells not so much a linear story as a journey with many moods and no guarantees of happy endings, but the love—as sickness and redemption—must be enough as is.
It is a deeply romantic show. Daniel and the cast swirl about the stage in a series of layered costumes that slide off as her quest becomes more frenzied, until as Tirzah she is dressed in the purest of whites for her lover.
The music fills the theatre with Middle Eastern melodies and choruses and an ancient, driving rhythm. The musicians include Manny Arciniega and Kendell Haywood on percussion; Jason Labrador and John Tyler Garner on violin; Cristian Perex and Duff Davis on guitar; Benjamin Rikhoff with a bass; and Mila Weiss handles the woodwinds. Ali Paris plays the Qanun, a rare 76-string zither, and as the lover, he has a lovely voice that suits the haunting sounds of the instrument. Director Christopher Renshaw wisely lets the music and the earthy, beguiling words anchor the show.
This is lush, deeply felt work that will reward an audience with a different type of theatrical experience—one that stirs the imagination and reminds us of how much power the poetry of words can bring to our lives.
Advisory: Adult themes.
Running Time: 90 minutes with no intermission.
“Love Sick” runs through September 29, 2019 at Theatre J, Washington, DC. For more information, please click here.
