roue

Interrupting his trial, the jazzy “Come Up to My Office” imagines Frank wholly out of character as a suave roué.

To be sure, the familiar conventions of romance literature are here in abundance: the aristocratic curled lip, the languid glance, sparkling eyes and a middle-aged blue-blood roué reformed by a plucky young woman.

Gardiner’s supporting cast lays a buoyant foundation for the evening’s entertaining dynamics: Bobby Smith’s Sipos, the shop’s supplicating bundle of nerves; Maria Rizzo’s Ilona, serial dater of all the wrong men; Emmanuel Elliot Key, portraying Arpad, the eager-beaver delivery boy; Jake Loewenthal’s Kodaly, the office roué.

The couple were thus revealed to me clearly: both removed their cloaks, and there was ‘the Varens,’ shining in satin and jewels,—my gifts of course,—and there was her companion in an officer’s uniform; and I knew him for a young roué of a vicomte—a brainless and vicious youth whom I had sometimes met in society, and had never thought of hating because I despised him so absolutely.

Marseille, France, for its beautiful beaches and the Grande Roue de Marseille.