Lou Laurence, who wrote this piece and is performing it, has charm to burn and an appealingly deep and raspy singing voice. Overall, though, Love, Sharks & Frenching is only intermittently engaging.
The premise is that Laurence is conducting a scientific experiment about how to find surefire success in dating and romance, and she’s doing that by going on group dates with a series of audiences. The set-up works well enough but, around the time when she was pretending to French kiss the whole crowd, she was seriously losing me.
That’s because nothing was adding up to much. A lot of her text is really only a series of introductions to songs that aren’t, themselves, terrifically engaging.
There are oases: a couple of times, Laurence takes suggestions from the audience and improvises songs — about our vulnerabilities, for instance. These bits work because they’re skilled and because, as spectators, we’re finally being invited to play along in a meaningful way — which is always a good thing on a date.
Remaining performances: Sept 8, 8:40; Sept 9, 6:30; Sept 11, 5:00; Sept 13, 12:45, Sept 14, 6:45. Tickets
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