Review: 'The 13th of Paris' is a look at love's familiar travails

Performance review |

Ah, Paris! Ah, toujours l'amour! Ah, the dilemmas of callow young men who don't appreciate their girlfriends!

Ah, "The 13th of Paris," a petite soufflé of a play by Mat Smart, now in its local debut at Seattle Public Theater.

Smart's take on love past and present is a comme ci, comme ça affair mingling continental charms and genuine insights with familiar tropes used in recent chick flicks about clueless swains.

Vincent (tousled, likable Trick Danneker) is a Chicago guy with a devoted gal, Annie (the dowdily coifed Emily Chisholm), and a nagging need to run off to Paris and encounter the spirit of his natty, long-deceased grand-père, also named Vincent (Frank Lawler).

You see, younger Vincent feels stuck in a rut with Annie: they have so little to say over dinner. (But, hey, they do sometimes chatter away in funny voices, as make-believe alien creatures.)

At the shabby-sweet studio apartment he's inherited in the nontouristy 13th Arrondissement of Paris (a pad nicely designed by Andrea Bryn Bush), Vincent peruses his grandparents' love letters, and ponders their tender courtship and mysterious demise.

The ghost of granddad, horrified at his descendant's lack of basic chivalry toward the stalwart Emily, is on hand with plenty of advice.

And Vincent learns that constant communion between lovers isn't always ideal, thanks to a visit by Emily's Paris-based pal, the clingy, boozy Jessica (Angela DiMarco), and her spouse, William (David Hogan).

This sort of material, veering between the schmaltzy and the quirky, requires a light touch, which it doesn't consistently get in Shana Bestock's staging — especially in the sloppy-drunk antics of Jessica. There's also a sightline issue that tends to obscure Candace Vance's near-silent-yet-expressive turn as a vision of Vincent's grandmother, Chloe.

It is to Smart's credit that the message of true love triumphing over cellphones, boredom, immaturity, death and the needs of one's offspring is a mixed one.

But others may succumb more readily to the play's charms than those of us who keep imagining the film version, starring some of the hotties from "Gossip Girl," or those vampire movies.

Misha Berson: mberson@seattletimes.com