Theatre Review: Wrong for Each Other

A man and a woman meet in a flower shop, and strike up a conversation. She’s an orchestra manager who socializes with musicians. He’s a painter – a commercial house painter, and his parents run a grocery. He proposes a date, and she hesitantly agrees, but he’s nervous.

Rudy: “So tell me, am I out of my league here, or what?"

Norah: “What do you mean?”

Rudy: “Am I out of my league? You with the looks and the symphony and the classical music and me with the vegetable stand and the paint roller. Am I out of my league, or could this thing really fly?”

More dates ensue, and the relationship reaches, y’know, an intimate phase. And she wants to know if he is seeing someone else.

Rudy: “Yes, I broke up with her…”

Norah: “When you started seeing me?”

Rudy: “Well, there was a little bit of an overlap there.”

Norah: “How much of an overlap?”

Rudy: “Till 20 minutes ago. As of this morning, we’re through.”

Norah: “This morning?”

Rudy: “I called her while you were asleep.”

Norah: “And you broke up with her?”

Rudy: “Yes.”

Norah: “On the phone? That’s a terrible way to end a relationship.”

If it sounds like these two people don’t have a strong basis for a long-lasting relationship, you’re getting warm. But this kind of nimble banter is pretty representative of this play – it’s a duet, tracing the ups and downs of a relationship. 

B Street actors Kurt Johnson and Melinda Parrett work up good chemistry, and young director Lyndsay Burch deserves a feather in her cap for creating a sense of direction and spontaneity in a story that’s rather lightweight and predictable.

Norm Foster’s greatest asset is the everyman quality of his characters – it’s easy to identify with them, and laugh along. And Foster doesn’t take himself too seriously. I just wish that Foster had more to say – he knows how to work a joke, but his dramatic skills are middling, and his insights into the things that make people tick are routine.

“Wrong For Each Other” is good enough to keep the audience onboard, and it’s an enjoyable little ride as far as it goes… but to be blunt, the B Street has picked more interesting scripts in the past.

"Wrong for Each Other" continues through April 20th.