Love circle

“Nostalgia is aroused in us less by what we have experienced than by what was once possible in our dreams,” writes a favorite author, and if there is a moral to Michael John LaChiusa’s fascinating musical, Hello Again, it is somewhat similar. Currently being staged by Chico State’s Theatre Arts Department and directed by Joel Rogers, Hello Again is a must-see—that is, if there are any tickets left by the time you read this.

The story, based on Arthur Schnitzler’s Viennese play La Ronde, follows a circle of eight lovers. We watch A make love to B, B to C, C to D, and so forth around the circle until we get back to A. The settings move about 20th-century history: World War II, the Latin vogue of the ‘70s, the sinking of the Titanic, Vietnam. Spoken phrases and musical motifs reappear again and again.

The ever-changing music runs from haunted near silences, to a couple of gorgeous, parallel-line duets, to a darkly parodic take on Offenbach’s Barcarolle. The acting/singing is often very good, and many of the sexual encounters feel true—a rarity in amateur dramatics.

Only once, about two-thirds of the way through, do a couple of lovers’ discouragements seem rather too much like one another. However, most of the time we are made to care about characters we see only briefly. And that’s high praise.