Jerry Montoya’s “Love and Baseball” is the kind of small play that B Street Theatre offers in the more intimate of its two stages, and that’s where it is being performed this month. As a one-act, two-character play with limited action and not a lot of storyline, it works very well. Simply stated, it’s a play about how life can get in the way of a potentially good romance.
But the title isn’t meant to be deceiving. The play most definitely contains equal amounts of love (or the pursuit of it) and baseball, and if you are a fan of either (who isn’t?), it is definitely a play worth seeing, especially this production of it.
The three separate scenes all take place in the living room of an apartment where both of the play’s characters (at different times) reside. In the opening scene, the guy (Will) rushes in to find the gal (Michele) sleeping on the couch. She used to live there and is now hanging out as she waits for Will’s roommate to arrive for their “non-date” movie night. Spoiler alert: the guy never arrives (or at least, if he does, it’s after the scene ends).
Will and Michele hit it off at once – not! She’s a philosophy teacher who knows little to nothing about baseball; he’s a fledgling movie director who has rushed home to catch Game 5 of the National League Championship Series in which his beloved Dodgers are playing. Second spoiler alert: he never gets to watch the game.
Instead, responding to her challenge, he re-enacts the most thrilling at bat in Los Angeles Dodgers history, and if you’re a baseball fan (of any team), you know what that at bat was. Michele surprises herself with her reaction: she loves it and suddenly feels positively about him as well. Feeling much the same kind of emotion, he suggests that she accompany him to a remote location (somewhere in New Mexico) where he is to direct a documentary about the last eleven known endangered grey wolves.
But then life gets in the way, and the play’s remaining two scenes involve reconnections after months and even years have passed. Such is life: kind of like baseball, it sometimes gets the best of you.
What makes this excellent production work so well is the chemistry between its two stars: Brittni Barger and Brian Rife. Mr. Rife plays the role of the baseball fan as believably as the script allows him. That he gives up on watching that playoff game that he rushed home to see is a little hard to believe, but he makes his love of baseball obvious in his re-enactment of that famous Dodger at bat as he simultaneously finds himself enamored of the woman he has just met.
And Ms. Barger is terrific as the object of his inconsistent expressions of affection. She succumbs to his charms, such as they are, after their first encounter, and then, when they meet again, the rage she displays at his failure to have been what she thought he would be is palpable and believable. Her Michele is wise to the ways of men, yet she lets herself fall in love, nonetheless. In that sense she is an everywoman, just as Mr. Rife’s Will is an everyman. And thus does the play have a universal appeal, even if you aren’t a baseball fan.
The behind-the-scenes work for this excellent production begins with Mr. Montoya, who directed this premier of his play. Samantha Reno designed the setting, and it functions well on the small B3 stage. Les Solomon was responsible for lighting design, and Steven Schmidt is the technical director.
“Love and Baseball” is, in a word, charming. It’s light, but not so light that it doesn’t score a few points, er, runs. And, if nothing else, it offers some good advice on what to do if you get to third base.
Performances of “Love and Baseball” continue at the B Street Theatre (on the B3 stage) through March 27. Tickets and information are available at the theater box office (2711 B St.), by phone (916-443-5300) or online (bstreettheatre.org).