“The Poetry of Pizza,” an enchanting opposites-attract love story between Sarah Middleton (Nancy Bell) and Soran Saleen (Arber Mehmeti), directed by Anne Justine D’Zmura for Cal Rep, is not just an aw-shucks romantic tale, it’s also a primer for how love bridges cultural differences as well as a humorous demonstration of how love is not wasted on the young. The setting is intimate and minimal, with pillars that allow for seamless transitions from pizza parlor to city park to apartment while creating an allegorical space for love to burgeon in a production which is really a scripted ballet whose characters hover like angels above the stage as if they were pas-de-deuxing down corridors of the heart.
With its coup de foudre, mistaken identities, a couple of conspiracies, a moment of crisis and, yes, a wedding, the production is buoyant and visual. It finds a majestic middle ground between an American professor of poetry doing research in Copenhagen who understands the poetics of love but not its flesh-and-blood embodiment and a lovesick Kurdish pizza maker who titles his artisan pies with words that Omar Khayam could have written and frames these works of art with cardboard delivery boxes. D’Zmura’s ethereal direction creates an anything-is-possible atmosphere, where a bookish woman with a large vocabulary and a Kurdish refugee with a large heart can not only fall in love but make a pizza parlor as romantic as the Taj Mahal. The characterizations are warm, endearing, and exceptionally heart-felt. Bell annunciates like a harp and doesn’t so much walk as float over the floor like Cyd Charisse. Mehmeti sublimates present crazy love and past unimaginable tragedy - sweet counterpoints to Sarah’s intertextual-this and Derrida-derived that - into a very touching gastronomic testimony that beauty is anything done to honor love,
The production was well served by a wonderful supporting cast. As Pam Adams, Sarah’s friend back home, Saba Mwine nicely provides a fine example as to how her cloistered chum should cut loose. Kyle Hall is likewise great as Heino Andersen, Sarah’s egghead Danish colleague who nonetheless found his groove at the end. Lysa Fox aces the role of Olga Oulund, Sarah’s widowed landlady, eavesdropper and erstwhile romantic fool while David Vegh shines as Rebar Frie, Soran’s boss and fellow refugee. And Sarah Underwood is radiant as Inga Enevold, an agoraphobic woman, who, in purple, no less, finally saw the light of day which brought her husband Ule, played by Mark Piatelli, back to his hilariously unsuccessful philandering senses.
Drawing upon elements of Japanese Noh and Bunraku theatre, Jeffrey Eisenmann’s set design is non-referential and spatial which corresponds nicely to the production’s simple message: love has no geography, no climate, it simply is. D’Zmura’s production is abrupt and blossoming, sensitive and poignant, giddy and profound, all of which serve as a fitting recipe for a love without borders, a love without history.
Performances are 8 PM, Tuesday – Thursday, 2 PM, Sunday. The play runs until March 13. Tickets are $16-20. The Theatre is located aboard the Queen Mary at 1126 Queens Highway. For more information call 985-5526 or visit www.calrep.org.
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