Review: Hampered by a Witless Script, 'The Lone Star Love Potion' is a Waste of Time

The Arctic Playhouse's "The Lone Star Love Potion" is a zany farce featuring an assortment of oddball characters deep in the heart of Texas.

Mr. Edward Stancliffe has passed away. His family and friends have gathered for the reading of his will at his sprawling ranch. Melody (Leslie Racine Martin) is the clumsy but dutiful maid; Jarvis (Ron Martin) is Stancliffe's loyal butler.

Patrice (Denise Izzi) is Stancliffe's niece as well as his only living relative. She inherits the ranch, but there is a catch: Jarvis gets to live there for the rest of his life. Patrice also can't sell the ranch without Jarvis' authorization.

Jarvis and Patrice, meanwhile, receive shares of a corporation, and the formula for a love potion. Patrice and her conniving husband Michael (Paul Koczwanski) scheme to manipulate Jarvis into giving up his shares of the corporation. To do this, the pair enlist the services of the sultry neighbor Tammy-Jo (Sarah Serilla). Patrice pays Tammy-Jo $5,000 to seduce Jarvis after he drinks the potion.

The way the love potion works is unusual: It doesn't affect the person who drinks it, but it does make others go wild with lust for the drinker.

What follows are ridiculous interludes featuring couples on the bed (which, for some odd reason, has been placed in Stancliffe's study). The random lust on display becomes tiresome very quickly.

Under the love potion's spell, Melody rips open her shirt and exposes her cleavage. As ornithologist Mary-Lou, Claire Leatham parades around in fishnet stockings to seduce a man. Tammy-Jo basically serves as a prostitute. These insulting portrayals manage to set the feminist movement back about 80 years.

Equally offensive is the unbelievable amount of physical punishment Michael has to endure. He is perpetually aroused, and gets slammed in the groin by Melody after he puts the make on her. In one scene, she threatens him with what looked like garden shears. This was more disturbing than funny.

Director Tony Annicone ("Social Security") usually gets terrific work from his performers, and this time is no exception. Martin is a gifted comic actor and exhibits tremendous charm even when he is uttering atrocious puns – he refers to Melody as a "tempest in a D cup."

Izzi has appeared in many Arctic shows and brings a saucy energy to Patrice. Koczwanski ("And Then There Were None") is quite effective at playing a womanizing creep. He is also skilled at executing physical comedy.

The cast's efforts aside, this play is a massive miscalculation and a waste of time. Michael Parker's witless script abandons all hope of narrative coherence, while reducing the female characters to nothing more than playthings for the men. Sexism runs rampant throughout the story. An arguably bigger problem with "The Lone Star Love Potion" is the fact that none of these characters are particularly interesting, so why should we care who gets control of the ranch?

"The Lone Star Love Potion" runs through October 20. Running time is two hours including intermission. The Arctic Playhouse. 1249 Main Street, West Warwick, RI. For tickets, call 401-573-3443 or visit thearcticplayhouse.com.