Review: MARRY ME A LITTLE at Zephyr Theatre

Marry Me a Little runs at the Zephyr Theatre on Melrose through June 22nd, as part of the Hollywood Fringe Festival.  There is a lot of charm in Marry Me A Little, a kind of grab bag of Sondheim songs, rejected from other musicals and showcased in their own revue.

Marry Me a Little starts strong with a pretty perfect “Two Fairy Tales” and seems to lose a bit of steam as it goes on.  There is so much to charm us here, which showed in the rather large and enthusiastic Fringe crowd on the night I attended.  There is Stephen Sondheim’s rich, mordant, peppery, dark sense of humor, his wistfulness and elegance, his sense of longing.  Unlike a lot of musical creators, Sondheim devotes a lot of space to ambivalence and the more nuanced human emotions, the squirmy, late night, doomscrolling feelings we may not even have names for.  Musical theatre lovers who are looking for more mature, layered, complex songs will certainly find a lot of to fall in love with here.  

As the male romantic lead, Kendre Scott has a deep, lovely, soaring voice, and an easy, naturalistic, authentic way of inhabiting the character and songs that allow their mordant humor and bittersweet wistfulness to shine.  There are moments where more vocal coaching and better direction could bring out a little more buttery richness in his voice, which sometimes sounds a trifle thin, and when the songs feel like they are not properly adjusted and calibrated to his deep range, but for the most part, this is a quiet, shining gem of a performance.  Kendre Scott blew me away with his “Happily Ever After,” which has to be one of the peak stage moments of the Hollywood Fringe Festival.

This production by Chromolume Theatre is charming in many ways, but also suffers from some misfires. As the female romantic lead of the two person show, Gina Ansaldi is miscast.  Ansaldi is sometimes hammy and stagey where she should be understated and heartfelt, loud and screechy where she should be soaring.  There is occasional shrillness and lack of consistent pitch in some of her vocals that is troubling in the context of a fully mounted production.  While Ansaldi clearly has a love for the material and an acceptable range and great flair in some songs, her voice does not seem adequate for the strenuous demands of a Sondheim revue.

Direction by James Esposito is uneven.  There are charming moments that truly sparkle on stage, but also a lack of vision and detail throughout the production.  In the staging and costumes, this feels more like a well-rehearsed acting class exercise than a fully mounted production.  Ansaldi suffers from an unflattering, lackluster costume that fails to add any texture to her character.  The props look like they are left over from someone’s roommate who just moved out.  A clear vision and aesthetic would enhance this production enormously.

Miki Yokomizo is definitely a star in this production, and plays with so much flair and emotion on the keyboard that you never feel any other instrumentation could be needed.

Photos by James Esposito