Love, Loss, and What I Wore

Broadway in Detroit opens up its soul — and its closet — at the Gem Theatre. A credit to the art of storytelling, Love, Loss, and What I Wore (by Nora Ephron and Delia Ephron, based on the book by Ilene Beckerman) takes a near-universal hook and uses understated camaraderie to make its expected material fresh. Director Karen Carpenter plays into, not against, the form, delivering a humorous and poignant reverie on the clothes that make the woman.

Every aspect of the production is simplicity done with panache. Jo Winiarski’s scenic design lets five tall chairs stand out on a bare stage, upon which Jeff Croiter’s delicious lighting scheme throws morphing hues and practical spotlight focus. Costumer Ren LaDassor demonstrates why the little black dress is a girl’s best friend, using the staple to unify five distinctly flattering looks. Excepting the solid microphone work, sound design by Walter Trarbach is relegated to bookends of the ninety-minute production, but makes an impression with peppy wardrobe-themed hits. Other than calculated gestures and timing, the staging is essentially nil; the cast sits in a static line and reads from binders. Yet this implies some deficit on the part of the production, when the choice actually reveals itself to be a strength, focusing on the stories themselves as much as the people telling them, and emphasizing the representative nature of these tales in the grand shopping-borrowing-buying-making-critiquing-outgrowing-ruining-resenting-discarding experience.

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