Love, Loss and What I Wore is Not for Women Only
By Gerry Furth-Sides

It helps to be in love with clothes, Nora Ephron's writing and stage readings, as I am, to enjoy Love, "Loss and What I Wore at the Audrey Skirball Theatre of the Geffen Playhouse, though judging from the laughter, the roars of approval and sighs of recognition, it appears that the effervescent Ephron touch to the show based on Ilene Beckerman's book of the same name won the entire audience over.

The show is a quickly moving series of life's rhapsodies, rituals and sorrows that accompany any female's choice of clothing, from the time she couldn't reach the closet hanger herself, and how these choices might be transformational. Ms. Ephron puts it best when describing a cherished apartment, "it was part of my identity, or at least part of my wishful thinking about my identity."

Staged with a focus on storytelling, the actresses sit side-by-side with script in-hand.

The Beckerman sections are predictable and sweet as would be expected from the reminiscences of Gingy, a once red headed grandmother who documents her own clothes history for her grandchildren. Her stories are accentuated by colorful line drawings of these outfits on hangers on a clothes rack next to her.

Gingy's life stories are the "salt" to the Ephron sisters' "pepper," tart and on target, the two a sort of Sleepless in Seattle opposite a You've Got Mail.

A round robin of throwaway lines, tossed in as punctuation between the vignettes, prove just as insightful and entertaining: "My mother always told me it was just as easy to marry a rich man," is quickly answered by a solid, "no it is not."

Subjects range from the proverbial fitting room lighting that induces flinching and painful high heels (always to be the right choice, however) to the existential state of standing in front of the closet and having "nothing to wear." A widower in a department store buys his daughter a party dress (or happily two, when the choice provides difficult). Critical mothers, absent-minded or absent men, and "the sisters" who remain supportive though thin and thick are not left out.

True, the production has a New York accent. Thus, there is a celebration of the perfection of black as wardrobe staple - or entire wardrobe. The rhetorical question is posed, "Can't we just stop pretending that anything is ever going to be the new black?"

Nora Ephron. The Clare Booth Luce of our time, with a little Jackie Mason timing thrown in. The show "had me" with a partial reading of Ephron's "I Hate My Purse," a laugh-till-you-cry romp in her book, I Feel Bad About My Neck. A litany about the contents are as funny as any Letterman "Top Ten" ("Kleenexes that either have or have not been used but there's no way to be sure one way or another, scratched eyeglasses, an old tea bag..") leading to an adventure in a Paris flea market with her friend who purchases a vintage "Kelly" Birkin at the bargain price of $2600! -- only to find herself caught in the rain before it is waterproofed. No surprise that it is the showstopper of the production.

The big surprises were the enthralling and glam beauties, Rita Wilson (Mrs. Tom Hanks) and Tracie Ellis Ross (Diana's daughter) neither fact noted in the program, who brought their characters to life in high style and with impeccable accents as necessary, especially Tracie as the Puerto Rican gang moll describing her gang sweater.

The first of the rotating casts included the superb Caroline Aaron, Carol Kane, Natasha Lyonne. The second upcoming cast is as promising: Conchata Ferrell ("Two and a Half Men"); original NY cast member, Rhea Perlman ("Cheers"); Nancy Travis, Justina Machado; Lucy DeVito ("It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia").

"Love, Loss and What I Wore," recently honored with the 2010 Drama Desk Award for Best Unique Theatrical Experience, opened in October 2009 off Broadway and is still playing to sold-out houses.

For information, please contact the Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater at the Geffen Playhouse, www.geffenplayhouse.com, 10886 Le Conte Avenue, Los Angeles, California 90024, 310-208-5454.

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