BWW Reviews: I DO! I DO! Celebrates Love at Gaslight Dinner Theatre

Arriving at Dickson's Gaslight Dinner Theatre just in time for Valentine's Day and all those accompanying celebrations of love and marriage is I Do! I Do!, the other Tom Jones/Harvey Schmidt musical (with The Fantasticks being the other other one - my apologies to fans of 110 in the Shade), that details 50 years in the lives of Agnes and Michael Snow, played with almost impossible charm by Jenny Norris-Light and Andy Brown.

With sprightly yet focused direction by Greg Frey and music direction by Les Horne (with choreography by the talented Tosha Pendergrast), I Do! I Do! provides a pleasant escape from the worries of the world, as we're treated to a bird's-eye view of the couple's trials and tribulations of married life and parenthood set to music that helps tell their shared story more vividly and more colorfully.

Norris-Light and Brown make for a lovely pair, to be certain, and their playful exchanges and spirited arguments are well presented and believable. Norris-Light plays Agnes with a sense of glee, given the opportunity to take us on a 50-year journey with her character that evolves naturally. She's in fine voice throughout the production, showing off her talent and training in the bevy of songs written for her character and giving us glimpses every so often of a glorious legit soprano that soars toward the stars, particularly in the show's prologue.

The fresh-face, almost boyish-looking, Brown is the perfect foil to Norris-Light's onstage character. He's focused and committed and deftly ages before our eyes as the sometimes pompous and pedantic Michael. He effectively plays Michael's growing sense of malaise in the confines of the couple's marriage, which makes his sudden realization that Agnes and the children are all he really needs in life all the more poignant and impressive.

As good as they are together, however, somehow the couple's performance of "My Cup Runneth Over," the show's signature song that is as lovely as any musical theater love song ever written, seems a missed opportunity here. Sure, it's sentimental and could be mawkish performed by far lesser talents than Norris-Light and Brown, but considering their skills I was hoping for something that would tug more strongly at my heartstrings. I was all set to be reduced to a puddle, but instead I was remarkably unmoved.

Set between the years of 1898 and 1948, the show's costumes (although quite lovely) don't really follow any sense of fashion history, with anachronisms abounding. It doesn't detract from the overall quality of the production, but represents a missed opportunity to create the proper sense of time and place.

Just one question: Where are the damn pillowcases? As with any production of I Do! I Do!, the set is dominated by the four-poster marriage bed that provides the setting for most of the play's action (and which gave the name to the original play - Jan de Hartog's The Fourposter - that serves as source material for the 1966 musical). It's part of a tastefully decorated set that serves the play's purpose for the 50 years portrayed, but for some reason - despite a lovely bedskirt, a beautiful quilt and various other accoutrement - Michael and Agnes' pillows are case-free. Are we expected to suspend disbelief to such a state that we can imagine the beloved characters falling asleep on the blue-striped ticking material without the benefit of a hand-crocheted, linen pillowcase to soften the blow, as it were. Egads!

• I Do! I Do! Book and lyrics by Tom Jones. Music by Harvey Schmidt. Directed by Greg Frey. Music directed by Les Horne. Choreography by Tosha Pendergrast. Presented by The Gaslight Dinner Theatre, Dickson. Through February 14. For details, go to www.gaslightdinnertheatre.org. Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes (with a 15-minute intermission with dessert!)

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