Review: 69 Love Songs by Gnap! Theatre Projects

by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on July 14, 2011

It’s in the very nature of improv for the performers to search feverishly for the emotional click with the audience: most often a laugh but sometimes a revelation, a moment of disgust, or a connection of sympathy.

If you scour the liner notes of 69 Love Songs by the Magnetic Fields you will find this admission by writer Stephen Merritt: “I like over-the-top sentimentality if there’s a justification for it.” While this thought is no way to sum up the majesty of his much-beloved indie/emo/pop/retro/folk rock masterpiece album, it is a good way to introduce it.   The second necessary detail is that Merritt did not write 69 Love Songs as a collection of songs about love, but …

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