Lampooning every stage of the struggle for satisfying relationships, Love Perfect itself seems to have found a relationship that works.

In Love with Love
by Marya Summers

This Carbonell-award-winning musical has the staying power of many great marriages.

Some people have to be threatened by a serial killer before they'll make a commitment. And it's just one of many obstacles on the way to true love that playwright/lyricist Joe DiPietro's Off-Broadway hit I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change presents. Lampooning every stage of the struggle for satisfying relationships, Love Perfect itself seems to have found a relationship that works. This summer Actors' Playhouse in Coral Gables brings the musical revue back for the fourth season in a row. And with few changes from their original 1998-99 season production.

Love Perfect offers a fast-paced parade of relationship clichŽs exploited in song. Take "Tear Jerk" where a big lug loses it during a chick-flick his date makes him see. Or there's "Always a Bridesmaid" where a woman ridicules the traditionally hideous bridesmaid's dress. And then there are numbers like "Single Man Drought" (the song's title says it all) and "A Stud and a Babe" (which lays out the differences between men and women) among the lot. In all, a cast of four plays 40 roles. With David Arisco's direction, the revue moves quickly and effortlessly between vignettes. While some critics are turned off by the tired clichŽs, most audiences find the show enormously funny and completely relatable. "Older people have probably lived every clichŽ we present," cast member Stephen G. Anthony explained in a July 2000 interview with The Miami Herald. Dolen's not alone. Lots of people love it and think it's perfect, and few want to change a thing. Audiences have loved the show so much that it made history.

Its 18-month run during its first season, in 1999, made it the longest running South Florida musical. And they've loved it consistently enough to support Love Perfect's numerous returns. In Love Perfect's first season, the critics went ga-ga and bestowed three Carbonells on Love Perfect for best musical, best director, and best actor. The Miami Herald's Christine Dolen gushed, "I love it. It's perfect. No changes required." Even detractors of the script can't find anything to complain about in its presentation. Stephen G. Anthony took a Carbonell Award (the South Florida version of the Tony) as best actor for his performance. Stacey Schwartz received thumbs-up for her comic timing and dynamite solo performance as an abandoned wife taping a video personal ad. Margot Moreland was praised for her delivery in numerous skits. But it is Wayne LeGette who has gotten consistent raves for what everyone seems to agree is the best part of the show-a love song ("Shouldn't I Be Less in Love with You") from a husband to his wife of many years as she sits across the breakfast table reading the paper. Ironically, the beloved revue has undergone some changes.
The cast changed (like a cast carousel, actors would leave only to return), but the reviews for each were consistently good. The fourth season production includes three of the original cast and one veteran (Stacey Schwartz) of the successive seasons. Love Perfect changed venues, too. The show's popularity warranted a mini-tour of South Florida. It traveled to the Broward Center for the Performing Arts and the Wilton Playhouse before returning home. Besides the LeGette's unflagging commitment to the show (he has been in every one), it is Arisco who remains a constant in the equation of the South Florida musical's success. It's been a relationship so steady, it's outlasting many marriages.

I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change
Through September 1 Actor's Playhouse at the Miracle Theatre 280 Miracle Mile, Coral Gables 305/444.9293.

Thursday-Saturday: 8 p.m., Sunday 2 p.m.
Admission: $32-35.

Special Bonus: On Fridays, the show comes complete with a set of Love goggles to help even the crankiest of critics enjoy the show. On these "Perfect Fridays," Actors' Playhouse offers a special free happy hour sponsored by Santa Rita wines and Baha Fresh from 6:30-7:30.

Wherefore art thou, Julio?

Take a '70s television comedy star, a Tony Award nominee/Obie Award winner, and an interactive, murder-mystery playwright, and assign them to a Romeo-and-Juliet storyline told in retrospective. What have you got? You've got William Katt (from America's Greatest Hero) directing June Gable (her awards are for stage work but she's best known as the raspy-voiced agent on the sitcom "Friends") in Carrol Mendelson's Rachel and Julio: A Love Remembered.

This time the story's about two kids from Brooklyn-a Jewish girl and a Cuban boy. As in Shakespeare's version, their parents have forbidden them to see each other. And like the original, the pair can't resist their attraction. Unlike Romeo and Juliet, however, they don't kill themselves. The play explores their courtship and romance and reveals the lovers' secrets. The twist on the classic story results from the suicide of Mendelson's son Marc, who died in 1994. Rachel and Julio began as a one-act to benefit the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Although Mendelson now lives in California, she used to perform at Hollywood Playhouse and is related to the city's mayor through the marriage of their children. Katt, who the playwright met when she moved to Los Angles, helped develop the script into a full-length play. It makes its world premiere this August.

Rachel and Julio: A Love Remembered
August 1-25 Hollywood Playhouse 2650 Washington Street, Hollywood.
Phone: 965/922.0404.
Thursday, Friday & Saturday at 8 p.m.; Wednesday & Sunday at 2 p.m.
Tickets: $20 adults/$14 students under 21.