Fleming is high note of thin 'Living'
NEW YORK — How do you deliver a pitch-perfect performance when the writer keeps giving you flat notes?
This is the conundrum faced by the cast of Living On Love (**½ out of four), the flimsy new comedy that marks the Broadway debut of opera star Renée Fleming. The play, which opened Monday at the Longacre Theatre, casts Fleming as Raquel De Angelis, a cartoon diva who carries a haughty air and a small dog named Puccini.
Raquel is married to a tempestuous Italian conductor, Vito, who has enlisted a ghostwriter (or "spooky helper," in Vito's unsteady English) to compose his memoirs. But the writer, an earnest young man named Robert, becomes frustrated with Vito's lax work habits — "Maestro," as he calls himself, tends to sleep past noon — and his insistence on embellishing the truth.
Vito decides to replace Robert with Iris, a pretty young woman in a low-level job at the publishing company; and a jealous Raquel suggests that Robert write her story instead. Though a great admirer of "Diva," Robert hesitates, telling Raquel she's "forgetting one large issue." Which is? "Your husband. He's large and he has an issue with me."
Playwright Joe DiPietro, who based Love on Garson Canin's rarely produced Peccadillo, provides a few sharper lines, but not enough to sustain nearly two hours of dialogue. Still, director Kathleen Marshall — a musical-comedy vet who worked with DiPietro's similarly clunky book for Nice Work If You Can Get It — keeps the pace brisk, and her actors are infectiously game.
Fleming, in particular, plays her part with obvious relish, and reveals a real flair for screwball repartee. The soprano uses her earthy speaking voice to great effect — lowering it when Raquel is trying to reprimand or seduce, then offering higher, brighter tones to affect delight or indignation.
On occasion, Raquel will regale us with a brief excerpt from a classic aria, allowing Fleming to show off her enduring prowess. (She also sings a pop standard, beautifully.) In one of the more winningly wacky scenes, Raquel attempts to re-create her portrayal of Mimi in La Boheme, while convincing Robert to take his shirt off and rub olive oil on his chest.
Jerry O'Connell deftly juggles wholesome and neurotic as Robert, and Douglas Sills preens and fumes effectively as Vito. The play is set in 1957, so Vito's consuming envy of Leonard Bernstein is a running joke, as is Raquel's of Maria Callas. Even more attention is paid to Vito's mispronunciation of Iris' name — "Irish," he calls the aspiring editor, perkily played by Anna Chlumsky.
Derek McLane's handsome set captures the opulent lifestyle Raquel and Vito maintain, despite complaining of money problems. "I love living with rich people," Iris says at one point. Here, at least, they make for lively company — even when saddled with lackluster material.