If they keep this up, people are going to talk. Oh, right, it’s 2007. Make that text.
Denver Post Ovation Award-winning actors John Arp and Rhonda Lee Brown have been cast as a couple in four plays (by three companies) in the past two years.
Well, four if you count that one time when Arp played a sadistic scientist who may have saved Brown’s character’s life from a crazy man- bug. Their coupledom more typically has been of the offbeat, lovey-dovey variety. She once played an adorable Marilyn Monroe to his adoring Albert Einstein. In “Almost, Maine,” she carried her broken heart with her (literally), and he fell in love with her instantly. Later, they kissed.
“Not just kiss,” said Brown. “We got to full on make out. That was fun. … And can I just reiterate how much fun that was?”
Theirs is a natural stage chemistry that’s both palpable and comforting to audiences. Arp calls it “a trust and a rhythm that can grow between actors who work together a lot.”
Even while being interviewed, they finish each other’s sentences like a married couple. Brown doesn’t think it’s happenstance that one show together tends to lead into another.
But their fake pheromones may face their biggest test yet in Curious Theatre’s new world-premiere light romantic comedy, “For Better …,” in which they play former lovers who rekindle an illicit affair entirely by phone, Internet and text messaging.
Eric Coble’s new play, commissioned by Curious, looks at how technological advances have resulted in less interpersonal human connection, not more. Michael (Arp) and Francine (Dee Covington) both travel for a living, so their marriage relies almost exclusively on e-mails and cellphone.
We are able to tolerate that we hardly see each other because we have all this technology at our disposal, but really it’s a false connection,” said Arp. “It’s the illusion of togetherness.”
Michael’s call to ex-lover Lizzie (Brown) unexpectedly starts up their old flirting, which makes for an odd love triangle – characters are hardly ever in the same room. Which is not to say there’s no sex.
“There is this accidental instant- message sex thing,” Brown said with a laugh. “It just … happens.”
But Brown, for one, would rather walk her dog than sit at a computer all weekend.
“I don’t think these advances are all positive,” she said. “I don’t like MySpace as a mode of communication. If someone wants to talk to me, I want them to pick up the phone and talk to me. So many people are obsessed with virtual reality rather than connecting with someone who is right in front of you. Well, if I am communicating with someone in the virtual world, then in that moment, I am not engaged with anyone in the real world.”
The many ways in which technology only further detaches us from one another has formed the backbone of many a cynical social commentary. “For Better …” makes its points in ways far more sweet and poignant, Arp said.
“This is not a piece poking fun at our reliance on technology,” he said. “That absolutely happens. … OK, it happens a lot, and it is great fun to see ourselves looking pretty silly with our gadgets up there. The real humor in the play, though, is watching these delightfully flawed characters pursue the age-old struggle to find love. Isn’t that what every romantic comedy is about?”
Coble has said the dominant theme of his play is “trying to figure out what love is, especially at great distances; trying to work out how extended families can survive – without killing one another.”
Covington thinks the heart of the play can be summarized when her character tells her husband: “We need to talk. And by talk, I mean be with each other, actually in the room.”
As if that might be an otherworldly suggestion.
It’s an interesting question to examine on the stage, especially when theater is, in many ways, its own virtual reality.
“The point is there is no substitute for a face-to-face relationship. … None,” said Arp. “Especially when you’re married.”
Speaking of being married, Brown is. But not to Arp.
“I love that you can be married, but when you do theater, you get to have fun like John and I do,” Brown said with a laugh. “I think that’s a huge motivation to be an actor, really.
John Moore: 303-954-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com
“FOR BETTER …”
Romantic comedy. Presented by Curious Theatre at Acoma Center, 1080 Acoma St. Written by Eric Coble. Starring Lisa Rosenhagen. Through Dec. 15. 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 2 p.m. most Sundays. $26-$32 (2-for-1 Thursdays). 303-623-0524 or
