“Love” takes center stage at Off the Wall Theatre

If you’ve heard of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Aspects of Love, you are likely in the minority. Unlike his more famous love story, The Phantom of the Opera, Love never succeeded in the States. If flopped on Broadway in 1990.

Off the Wall Theatre has reconsidered the piece, and found value in it. The company’s production, which opened Thursday, reveals Aspects of Love to be a powerful, deeply moving work that challenges the viewer to rethink what love can be.

The play centers on five characters snarled in a web of family and emotional ties. Alex Dillingham (Matt Walton) puts everything into motion when the 17-year-old falls madly in love with an older actress, Rose Vibert (Laura Monagle). His youthful passion sweeps her up initially, but she eventually leaves him for his uncle George (Bob Hirshi). Giulietta (Sharon Rise), George’s magnetically charismatic sometime-lover, and Jenny (Alison Pogorelc), the daughter of Rose and George, further complicate things. Jenny will grow to entrance Alex 15 years after Rose leaves him.

For all the complication and confusion, the play starts simply, like first love. The show and Alex advance cautiously, yet pushed along with youthful impatience. Unfortunately, the show is also as awkward and ill-paced as a first love can be. Before we’ve really gotten to know Alex and Rose, they’re off on an adventure to his uncle’s abandoned villa for the fortnight Rose is out of work. Seemingly moments later, she is leaving him for that uncle. The first act is a bit of a blur; things change in the blink of an eye, too quickly for them to be effective.

But the musical matures as Alex does, as the second act redeems the haste of the first. Another passionate affair drives it, that of cousins Alex and Jenny. But this time it builds slowly, and the chemistry between the two is palpable.

The affair benefits from the layered relationships behind it. Several aspects of love are now in play: spousal, paternal, lost, regretted. These elements give the second act a richness absent from the unwieldy triangle of the first act. Act two also raises that tantalizing possibility that it might be wrong to act on feelings of love. Thus the show inverts the previous act’s message, the pop-culture cliché of following your heart wherever it leads. The play never comes down on either side of the argument, but the conflict it generates is profound.

In the vein of most Webber musicals, Aspects of Love is operatic, with almost all of the dialogue sung. The most famous number is Love Changes Everything, which Walton delivers with hair-raising resonance every time it rolls around. Several numbers are as good, if not better; Hand Me the Wine and the Dice and Anything but Lonely, sung by Rise and Monagle, respectively, are spellbinding.

So is the cast, assembled by director Dale Gutzman. They compelement one another, though Rise stands out and steals scenes left and right.

It’s a challenging play, Aspects, and Off the Wall met its challenges.

Aspects of Love runs through July 24 at Off the Wall Theatre, 127 E. Wells St., with shows at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday and at 4:30 p.m. Sundays. Tickets are $24.50 and can be purchased online or at (414) 327-3552.