Well, it’s no “Long Day’s Journey Into Night.”
Then again, “I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti” has no pretensions of being anything other than a pretty good time, and in that context it succeeds. Indeed, there’s plenty to be said for a comedy that sets the bar somewhere in the middle ranges, then clears it, all while offering up a friendly smile.
This good-natured one-woman show at the George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick is based on Giulia Melucci’s memoir of the same name. We follow her, as portrayed by Antoinette LaVecchia, as she relates her misadventures as a single woman looking for love. From her early life in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, through her eventual jobs in publishing in Manhattan, Giulia has a knack for becoming tangled in problematic relationships.
“I’m drawn to repressed men the same way I’m drawn to a bubbling tray of lasagna,” she says. “They’re like a Rorschach test that allows me to project whatever I want on them.”
One is a drinker, another is a wet blanket, another is afraid of commitment. We learn how Giulia met them, what they looked like and, most notably, where and what they ate together as she name-drops the restaurants where she dined and the dishes that she herself fixed for these often-unreliable men.
“For me, a new boyfriend is an opportunity to show off the thing I am most confident about — my cooking,” she says. “I can spot a man’s gastronomic inclinations at first sight.”
And cook she does. In between the recollections and opinions, as well as occasional phone interruptions from her meddling mother, Ms. LaVecchia’s Giulia chops, dices, boils and ladles real ingredients from a working kitchen. She then serves the meal and wine to a handful of theatergoers who sit onstage. It’s gimmicky, of course, yet the preparation is also surprisingly pleasing to watch.
Ms. LaVecchia is a genial actress, rarely without a welcoming grin. She maneuvers through the kitchen with ease, a chatty and funny friend who is eager to engage her guests. As directed by Rob Ruggiero, who also directed her in the piece at TheaterWorks in Hartford in 2012, she tells her tales with a just-us tone, most memorably one about an early love.
“He was totally into me, so, naturally, I thought something was wrong with him,” she says of Kit, with whom she loses her virginity. “At the same time, I’m having a meltdown. I could barely eat.” This from a woman who could “count on my breasts the number of times I’ve missed a meal.”
Soon they’ve moved in together, and she’s manic. “Cooking for Kit became a way to show my affection, outside of the bedroom. And thank God I am a good cook, because in every other way, I was making him crazy.”
That relationship implodes, and others follow. The script, adapted by Jacques Lamarre, is filled with similar scenes, along with a profusion of ’80s references and affectionate stereotypes, and shies away from almost anything that could elicit a frown. This is a play that prompts enthusiastic nods from audience members over its stories, and loud “Mmmm’s” and “Ahhh’s” over its descriptions of food.
“You know how we Italians are,” she says, one of many “You knows” and similar phrases meant to establish a connection. “When we need to work things out, we work them out in the kitchen. I get therapy. You get to eat.”
Such quips can be endearing. But as the show moves toward the end of its two-hour running time, it risks an overabundance of niceness. Certainly not every play has to delve deeply or employ a complex plot. Still, like a dash of spice, a few more melancholy or irate moments would not be unwelcome here. An intermission also saps some of the momentum; a shorter production, presented in one act, would be much sharper.
Those qualms aside, “I Love, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti” winds up being a bit better than that cutesy title might lead you to believe. That is the result of a script ready to forge a warm bond with an audience, and of an actress willing to wear her heart on her sleeve.
As well as on her apron.