\n<\/p>\n
Which they are, of course, but not in a conventional way. After that setup, the show travels to 1791 then moves forward in time in a series of scenes set in various eras. In 1894, for example, Susan is involved in a feminist group and leads the barnstorming \u201cWomen\u2019s Club Blues,\u201d<\/a> whose music builds from rumbling vamps to explosive boogie-woogie. Unfortunately JoAnn M. Hunter\u2019s perfunctory choreography does not lift the number into showstopping territory.<\/p>\n The years and even decades may be passing, but the four Coopers never age, like the nicest singing, dancing vampires ever. Sam holds different jobs and Susan starts working outside the home. They become progressively embittered with life, with each other, with the gendered roles they are stuck in.<\/p>\n That alone would set \u201cLove Life\u201d apart from its contemporaries, but Lerner and Weill upped the ante by interpolating the Coopers\u2019 story with numbers that comment on the action by borrowing from vaudeville tropes. They are performed in front of a curtain, as often happened in that genre, and one centers on the traditional vaudevillian figure of a hobo (John Edwards, in stunning vocal form in the torchy solo \u201cLove Song\u201d).<\/p>\n Act II dumps the guardrails and turns fascinatingly odd \u2014 which is saying something for a show that is, after all, about a seemingly immortal family standing as a metaphor for an increasingly fractured America where moving forward does not necessarily translate as an improvement for everybody. <\/p>\n It all peaks with a fantasy suite of distinct vignettes led by an M.C. (Edwards again) in an effort to reunite the estranged Sam and Susan. The original version was done as a minstrel performance, but at Encores! it is retooled as a magic fantasy, \u201cThe Love Life Illusion Show.\u201d Among the indications that the timeline here extends beyond 1948 is that the \u201cMadame Zuzu\u201d segment\u2019s Miss Horoscope (Nicole Fernandez-Coffaro) and Miss Mysticism (Ta\u2019Nika Gibson) are, according to the revised script, \u201cdressed as New Age influencers\u201d \u2014 which the costume designer Tracy Christensen seems to have interpreted as 1960s hippies. By that point I had stopped trying to make sense of it all, and just let the voices carry me.<\/p>\n If anything, this production will hopefully encourage others to take a stab at \u201cLove Life.\u201d A better staging may be on the horizon \u2014 and perhaps that, too, is a metaphor for America.<\/p>\n Love Life<\/strong>
Through March 30 at New York City Center, Manhattan; nycitycenter.org<\/a>. Running time: 2 hours 40 minutes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n