More substance than the average dessert

REBECCA ROSENTHAL/YH I can't keep my balance!

Tiramisu, opening tonight at the Off-Broadway Theater, is an enjoyable and well-acted relationship play. The story focuses on a love triangle among a group of young friends. Jake (Justin Vaughn, BR '02) is stuck in a bitter, joyless relationship with Julia (Tara Nicosia, ES '01), a domineering and self-absorbed fashion model. After an argument with Julia at a costume party, Jake falls for Dessa (Elana Firestone, TC '03), an aspiring artist who works at a coffee shop. When Julia finds out about this new relationship, Jake is forced to confront his real feelings about both women.

The greatest strength of Tiramisu is its male characters. Working from a lively script by Amanda Martinez, PC '02, who also co-produced the show, the three freshmen actors who portray Jake's friends—Anthony Seabrooks, TC '04, Eric Gilde, BR '04, and Adam Shott, PC '04—play off each other very well, creating funny and realistic group conversations. Gilde is a standout as Ricky, the loud and obnoxious womanizer of the group. For his part, Vaughn turns in a sturdy and understated performance; he plays off the other male actors well in Jake's conversations with his friends, and is equally comfortable in his scenes with Firestone and Nicosia.

The two lead actresses are also excellent. As Julia, Nicosia is a fiery snob, preening and unpleasant, with a strong sense of her own nobility. When a friend suggests that Julia's billboards in Paris might be vandalized, Julia dismisses her. "Parisians would never do that," she says.

One of the finest moments in the play comes after a coffee-shop conversation between Julia and two friends. When Julia leaves the room, her friends look at each other and roll their eyes in disgust. It's not just an indictment of Julia, but of all three; not one of the friends appears to have any real affection for or loyalty to the others.

It would be easy to portray Dessa as the exact opposite of Julia: the honest, sincere and intelligent counterpart to Nicosia's vacuous snob. But Firestone portrays her as a more complex person than that; her Dessa is a sympathetic character who is nonetheless imperfect. She speaks in longer words than Julia, but there are still occasional echoes of Julia's pretension. "Definite core relationship flaw," she tells a friend in a discussion about Jake, and the valley-girl tone instantly recalls Julia.

Dessa's most important quality, as Jake will discover, is not her intelligence, her kindness or her artistic ability, but her sincerity. This is what elevates her above Julia, and Firestone does a good job of highlighting it. "You told me I could trust you," she tells Jake, and we can see that this is what matters to her: trust and honesty. For Julia, of course, these are afterthoughts.

Working with very few props and a sparse white set, director and co-producer Robert McGinnis, ES '01, keeps us focused on the dialogues that make up the heart of the story. He deserves credit for the actors' careful timing, which allows the conversations to flow in a casual and realistic way.

There are a few dream sequences that, though entertaining, can make things a little difficult to follow at first, including a clever game show sequence that brings together the three members of the central love triangle for the last time in the play. After this, they will interact in pairs: Jake and Dessa, Dessa and Julia, Julia and Jake.

The worst thing that can be said about the script is that Martinez has probably watched a lot of Julia Roberts movies. Indeed, on the surface, the plot seems like a cookie-cutter romantic comedy; but in many ways Martinez turns that formula on its head. Despite the frequent jokes, Tiramisu is not a comedy at heart, nor is it an optimistic statement about love. Instead, it is a subtle and honest exploration of the feelings and motives that bring us together and split us apart. Many of the characters' actions are ambiguous—for example, Rob's reluctant boasting about his night with Dessa: has he betrayed her trust, or is he innocently trying to impress his friends? We never find out for sure. It is these uncertainties that make Tiramisu an engaging and clever piece of theater.

Back to A&E...