newjerseynewsroom.com

BY LAURIE GUARNIERI

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

Looking for love? Try Rutgers Theater Company's production of Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux's 18th-century comedic romp, The Triumph of Love. Stephen Wadsworth's witty adaptation, originally commissioned and produced by McCarter Theatre in Princeton, opened February 5, just in time for everyone's favorite Hallmark holiday, Valentine's Day.

"It's a total date play," director Chris O'Connor says. "It has heat." This lush production of Marivaux's whimsical sexual farce, set in a fanciful French garden, manages to mine all the comedic aspects of romance.

As the play opens, a princess named Léonide, whose uncle usurped the throne, searches for the kingdom's true prince, Agis. Léonide is mad for Agis, and she's determined to get her man - but first she'll have to tangle with, deceive, and seduce five colorful characters.

In the process, a gender-bending Léonide "seduces a man and a woman who are hardened against love," O'Connor says. "She tears them down and exposes their hypocrisy. It's hilarious to see them giving in. It's delicious." Ultimately, O'Connor says, Léonide is a "woman who believes in the power of love."

So who knows? Maybe love does conquer all.

The Triumph of Love runs through Saturday, February 20. Performances are 8 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays. Tickets are $25 for the general public, $20 for Rutgers alumni and employees and seniors and only $15 for students with valid ID.

The New Theater is in the Mason Gross Performing Arts Center, 85 George Street (between Route 18 and Ryders Lane), on the Douglass Campus of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

For more information call the Mason Gross Performing Arts Center ticket office at 732-932-7511.