Lord Loveworthy is in a pickle. His daughter Emily is engaged to marry an Earl, and being Father of the Bride he’s obliged to pick up the tab. Loveworthy is a novelist, and such is the nature of literature and society, that he doesn’t net nearly enough to manage the expenses. He invites Miles Monger, a revered literary critic, and his wife Millicent to tea, planning to get Miles alone long enough to extort the necessary funds. Without so much as disclosing the secrets, he guarantees that before the evening is done, Miles will gladly pay for the wedding. Quite unexpectedly, Emily shows up early, with a scruffy, bucolic, mountain man in tow. Baffled and perplexed, Lord and Lady Loveworthy, insist that Emily’s new love interest depart forthwith.
Lord Loveworthy is handsome, long-suffering and glib. His wife, Lillian, is peevish, put-upon and contemptuous of men, with all their foibles and stupidity. Fennimore, the Butler, is efficient, and deliciously cheeky. Miles, is an erudite, arrogant critic, pedantic and obnoxious. His wife, Millicent, is submissive, kind, and much more savvy than she appears. Emily is intelligent, enlightened, assertive and confrontational. Emily’s new boyfriend is salt-of-the-earth, rugged, self-sufficient and (*sigh*) gallant.
Written by Jeff Goode, Love Love’s A Pornographer is an homage/mashup of The Comedy of Manners perfected by Oscar Wilde and Noel Coward. This play is not so much an imitation as a spoof of a spoof. A send-up of a genre. Mistaken identities, snobbish rejection of American culture, subterfuge; juicy gossip, dry and obtuse insults, propriety above all else. The plot and dialogue are gleefully Byzantine and (as we might surmise from the title) decadent behavior is applied like tinsel on a Blue Spruce. These familiar elements are all present, and used to great effect. Goode takes great pleasure in humbling the aristocracy by mocking and humiliating them. Miles Monger is clearly the most duplicitous, treacherous, haughty and deprecating among them, so naturally he is lambasted with great vigor.
Love Love’s A Pornographer is spirited, clever entertainment. Jeff Goode exploits the tropes of British hubris and the absurdity of affectation, with great gusto and finesse. The cast (under the deft navigation of Carol Rice) is positively submerged in the intricate, defiantly elaborate, unbelievably preposterous plot, jumping into chaos without trepidation or hindrance of rational . All the better to tickle you with, my dear.
Love Love’s A Pornographer starred: Christian R. Black, Blake Rice, Penny Elaine, Lucia Welch, Eddy Herring, Sara Parisa and Matthew Strauser.
Rover Dramawerks presented Love Love’s A Pornographer: January 13th-22nd, 2022. Cox Playhouse, 1517 H Avenue, Plano, Texas, 75074. 972-849-0358. www.roverdramawerks.com
Don’t miss Sweet Revenge, March 17th-26th, 2022.