Reading: Don't Fuck With Love

While Kate Matschullat has successfully modernized her adaptation of Alfred de Musset's On ne badine pas avec l'amour, in which a father tries to marry his son and his son's cousin (now a step-daughter), the philosophy of this play doesn't speak loud enough (despite the screaming title) to necessitate a revival, and this coming from someone who would love to see Jeanine Serralles playing so coy and intellectual a role. I have faith that it will get there in development with Red Bull, although I worry that while Lear deBessonet can easily direct this play (she connected well with the philosophical transFigures and got the heart of Brecht's St. Joan of the Stockyards), the mixed media of the cyberspace injected into the show might needlessly bog her down. I wonder, too, about the necessity of paparazzi who speak in verse . . . but these are just thoughts from a delighted audience member who knows this is a work-in-progress, and who is eager to see what comes next.