First Date, directed by Christina Ramirez, with a script by Austin Winsberg, slams us with all the goofs and hiccups of modern dating, which, without the bubbly, rambunctious soundtrack and good-natured buffoonery that personify our daters’ inner turmoil, might qualify as abuse and reality-TV cringe. The hook is all too obvious—gawky button-downed normie left for dead on a date with an alternative, artsy, eye-rolling type, and she too, less desperately left for dead—but that’s the whole point, and Winsberg’s script is a relentless embrace of the cliche.
Adrian Thornburg as Aaron and Dani Pike as Casey, thrown into the lion-pit of blind bar dates, sink into near-caricatures of their respective types with perfect awareness and don’t pretend otherwise, except when a semi-touching moment relieves the stereotypes, and we catch on to the theme of the whole charade—stereotypes are true, but not totally true. Yes, the nerdy Jewish boy from New York does resort to his precious eye drops at one point. And, yes, the nose-ringed cool girl does look at him with contempt. But this production has fun with camp and proves more interesting than the tired cliches suggest.
The music and lyrics by Alan Zachary and Michael Weiner are suitably loud and intrusive. Songs blast off at all the wrong times like a Skype call at a work meeting. They give giddy voice to the blood-hot worries and self-effacement fantasies that contrived, face-to-face romance incites.
A colorful variety of characters explode into song and dance to our delight—a nice relief from the twitchy, sweat-trickling awkwardness. Most of these spontaneous performers are figments of the two daters' imaginations, inner critics in the form of family members and friends who expand the story to include their pasts, fantasies, and insecurities. These include Casey’s two edgy exes, one a gothic-looking Brit rocker dude who might idolize The Smiths (Kyle Twomey), the other a hazy-voiced mushroom-ingester who likely sleeps with his bong (Nikolai Sorokin).
Music director Kyra Leigh and the whole singing cast dazzle us with the constant, flirty numbers. Aaron’s ex Allison (Mari Duckler) floats in like a self-obsessed siren with a valley accent as her imagined attempts to lure him back, laughable to us, intermittently daze our too-nice neurotic. One of the funniest of these musical intruders is a friend of Casey’s, also played by Sorokin, whose pop-tune jingle “Bailout Song” alerts Casey of her option to skedaddle on a false pretense—an abruptly hospitalized relative? If she can make a run for it, why not?
The performances all around are energetic and fittingly cutesy for this young person’s romcom. That doesn’t mean there’s no reflective relief from all the pizzazz and young adult angst. Thornburg and Pike subtly suggest deeper currents to their psychology that go beyond flat caricature. Casey reveals that her parodied craving for bad boys isn’t her only personality trait. Neither is her hard-shelled aversion to financially stable Wall Street boys. Aaron, a tattooless banker beset by neuroses, not only wins over but subtly stuns Casey when he makes a tender revelation: the loss of a parent at a young age and considerable domestic tumult that his normie surface belies. Casey is shaken out of her stereotyped perception. She seems to visibly contact the human substance beneath Aaron’s conformist shell.
First Date imbues a fun and familiar dating dilemma with new energy and creativity that sets it apart from other too-obvious romcom bores. Anyone looking for a lighthearted time, unceasing LOLs, and a comical palliative to the pangs of dating life should see it.
First Date continues through October 20 at Oil Lamp Theater, 1723 Glenview Road, Glenview. Running time is 90 minutes with no intermission. The showtimes are Thursdays and Fridays at 7:30pm, Saturdays at 3 and 7:30pm, and Sundays at 3pm. Tickets are on sale now for $34 - $48. Recommended for ages 18+.
For more information on this and other plays, see theatreinchicago.com.
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