I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change

Event: I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change
Venue: Drama Centre Theatre
Run: 9th Jun – 19th Jun 2011

“I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change” was everything I had expected it to be – hilarious, witty, comical, tongue-in-cheek, entertaining.

I felt it very similar to last year’s “Water Coolers” for some reason, maybe because like “Water Coolers”, it was a musical collection of hilarious little vignettes tackling a certain overriding theme.

You could say “I Love You” is to love and romance what “Coolers” is to office life.

“I Love You” loosely follows the chronological order of the many highs and lows in one’s love life, in the way that the first act deals with the concept of blind dates, dating and relationships, while the second act deals with later-in-life concepts such as marriage, parenthood and old age.

And truth be told, the first act of “I Love You” seemed much more entertaining and engaging than its second act.

There was a certain sense of the laborious in the second act in the way it seemed to plod along, whereas the first act felt more fleet of foot.

You could perhaps draw some parallels here with real life – how everything seems so much more exhilarating when one is falling in love (first act), and how things seem to start to drag along once one goes into marriage and starts raising a family (second act).

The book and lyrics were excellent – stuff that we’ve come to expect from hit Broadway productions basically, although sadly, the same could not be said for the music.

I thought the rhymes were very clever and witty, and I enjoyed many of the lines in the book.

Sadly, I didn’t feel that the music was all too memorable, except for perhaps the last number (of which the production derives its title from).

My favourite scenes include the one where Richard Meek and Leanne Ansell were flirting after a game of tennis, and also the scene where Cynthia Lee MacQuarrie did her solo turn in front of the video camera filming a dating profile video.

And while all four performers were commendable (RJ Rosales is the fourth performer), I would have to single out Richard Meek as my favourite performer of the evening.

I thought he was the funniest actor of the group!

The scenes were hit and miss, and while many of them were largely entertaining, there were the few scenes that just didn’t quite work.

And in the same way that “I Love You” had its fair share of imperfections, we know all too well that just like in real life, love is never always a bed of roses either.