99-Seat Beat: Genderless space creatures, mythic New Jerseyites, bickering Hungarians, and more
By F. KATHLEEN FOLEY
NOV 02, 2018 | 6:00 AM
‘She Loves Me,’ Actors Co-op David Schall Theatre
The essentials: Surrounded by a colorful coterie of co-workers, two comically bickering shop clerks in 1930s Hungary find a respite from their humdrum lives in an epistolary romance with pen pals they have never actually met. Of course, they later realize that their mysterious mutual admirers are none other than each other, and that all of their abrasive interactions were just the preliminaries to their own slowly simmering love story.
Why this? Miklós László’s 1937 play “Parfumerie” has given rise to numerous adaptations, most notably Ernst Lubitsch’s 1940 film “The Shop Around the Corner,” a deft delight that has become a Christmas perennial. Only modestly received in its 1963 production, this musical has won multiple Tonys in its various incarnations, including a blockbuster 2016 Broadway revival that established its durable appeal for modern-day audiences. Savvy veteran of stage, screen and television, director-choreographer Cate Caplin helms the production, which promises a refreshing plunge into pure nostalgia.
Details: Actors Co-op David Schall Theatre, 1760 N. Gower Hollywood. (On the campus of the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood.) 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; 2:30 p.m. Sundays. Ends Dec. 16. $39. (323) 462-8460. www.ActorsCo-op.org