On the surface, Love of a Pig is the theatrical equivalent of a chick flick: the feel-good "girl meets boy, boy is oblivious, girl wins in the end" fare that attracts women to the theatre in packs, leaving their relieved significant others at home. But Love of a Pig isn't just feel-good — it is good.
The script by Emmy Award-winning Leslie Caveny of Everybody Loves Raymond follows Jenny (Dana Brooke), an always-the-bridesmaid type who is serially unlucky in love and desperately seeking a mate. Caveny manages to transform a clichéd premise that could easily devolve into an hourlong self-pity session into a genuinely fresh and funny look at why we fall for all the wrong people. She explores the disparity between our intentions and reality to great effect, presenting her heroine's best-laid plans only to reveal the hilarious consequences of their unraveling.
And when Caveny's script becomes repetitive, the ensemble of seven jumps in to fill the void. Every member of the company deftly plays multiple roles, each with his or her own eccentricities. Although they only exist within the context of the play to serve in Jenny's world, sometimes literally as a door or an exercise machine, they are often just as multidimensional as the heroine.
Brooke also recognizes the humor in Jenny's situation but never plays solely for the joke. Schadenfreude lets us laugh at her romantic missteps, but when she is stood up without so much as a phone call, there are no sardonic cackles; we have been drawn into her hope.
Presented by the Cardinal Group, Jeffrey Schulman, Richard Pepenella at the 45th Street Theatre, 354 W. 45th St., NYC. Oct. 12-28. Wed.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 7 p.m. (212) 868-4444 or www.smarttix.com.