The Young and the Heartless: The Gronholm Method and No Love, Reviewed

A A A Comments (0) By Steven Leigh Morris Thursday, Sep 6 2012

The qualities of love unrequited, love twisted and love paralyzed are universal and here depicted through a prism of despondency. What virtues the play contains — and there are many — emerge, thanks to the brave and committed cast, which deserves more focused and rigorous direction.

The agony of loneliness is at the heart of this anti-romantic and violent comedy. The production aims to throw a series of sucker punches, as though when an emotional pitch is reached, the play or the production wants to mock that emotion with deliberately gratuitous cruelty, as in the writings of Marquis de Sade: Fools, don't you realize how corroded our romantic love stories have become.

PHOTO BY DAVID NOTT

Laura Lee Bahr and Blake Anthony in No Love

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Falcon Theatre

4252 Riverside
Burbank, CA 91505

Category: Theaters

Region: Burbank

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Eclectic Company Theatre

5312 Laurel Canyon Blvd.
Valley Village, CA 91607

Category: Theaters

Region: San Fernando Valley

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Lordygan's production is good enough to reveal that complicated ambition but not good enough to fulfill it.

Two particularly strong performances are by Marmion as a bewildered Army reservist, and by Michelle Danyn as his platonic, childhood friend, so arrogantly glib when they meet years later. She admonishes him dismissively, despite his obvious yearning and heartbreak, that his childhood intransigence toward her squandered all opportunity, even now, for anything more than a friendship. Yet on her seemingly firm resolve, the tables too will turn. True to the spirit of this comedy, in a heartless world, tables keep turning, and destiny keeps lashing out against everyone.

THE GRÖNHOLM METHOD | By Jordi Galcerán Ferrer, translated from the original Spanish by Anne Garcia-Romero and Mark St. Germain | Falcon Theatre, 4252 Riverside Drive, Burbank | Tues.-Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat., 2 & 8 p.m.; Sun., 4 & 7 p.m.; through Sept. 30. | (818) 955-8108 | falcontheatre.com