Imagine looking so good in trousers that everyone, regardless of sex, falls in love with you. That’s exactly what happens in Jeffrey Stock and Susan Birkenhead’s Triumph of Love. When they did the musical last year at Performance Riverside, the lighting designer filled the fake 18th century sky with a rainbow. Nothing implied, you understand, but it works.

According to Steve Glaudini, who’s come to town to stage the rarely performed yet fabulous 1997 Broadway miss for Starlight Bowl, a large percentage of the audience was gay and lesbian. What? Gays and lesbians in Riverside? How shocking!

James Magruder based the musical’s book on his translation of the 1732 play by Marivaux. The work is redolent of Shakespeare’s earlier Love’s Labour’s Lost in which all the men retreat to the gardens surrounding a country estate, far from emotion and any thought of love, to devote themselves to a monastic and celibate pursuit of knowledge.

Magruder calls Princess Leonide, the heroine of Marivaux’s piece , “brainy and ruthless”.

“In order to win the man she wants [Prince Agis of ancient Sparta],” Magruder says, “and rightfully restore him to the throne she sits upon, she seduces him and his two philosopher guardians – a brother and sister – who have trained him to scorn love and hate women.”

How to get into the garden where women may not go? In age-old theatrical tradition the princess dons trousers. Accompanied by her earthy serving woman, Corine (Leigh Scarritt), and two retainers straight out of commedia dell’arte, Harlequin (Richard Israel) and Dimas (Paul James Kruse), she breaches the hedge in breeches. Michael G. Hawkins and Debbie Prutsman play the fierce intellectual guardians, Agis’ uncle Hermocrates and aunt Hesione.

You can imagine the complications when all the sequestered intellectuals fall in love with Leonide in her various male guises. With Hesione, who’s thrilled over the attentions of a younger man, she is Phocion. With Agis, who’s never had a confidant, let alone a lover, she’s his “friend” Phocion and then Cecile; and with Hermocrates, who catches the drift of her drag immediately, she’s Aspasie. In each case, as the song goes, “Love Won’t Take No for an Answer.” What a pickle.

Princess Leonide is played by Glaudini’s wife of nearly 10 years, Bets Malone, who early in her career performed in the West Coast premiere of Annie at Starlight. A native of Vista, she appeared as a boy in Moonlight’s very first production.

“I’ve been doing this cross-dressing thing for a long time,” she said. “I was a little boy in Oliver! so Moonlight and I share an anniversary together every year.

“I spend the majority of the show in trousers, and they’re white trousers, but we won’t go into that. Stretchy white trousers. I think if anything it may command respect from the other women in the audience.” We do admire bravery.

Malone met Glaudini, a native of Fullerton, about 12 years ago in a production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at the Curtis Theatre in Brea.

Asked how it feels being married to the director, Malone responds: “It works out good for us, actually. We just did Company together. The first time he directed me was last year in [Moonlight’s] Children of Eden. In the car after rehearsals I got a couple more notes than everybody else did, just little behavioral things. I socialize a lot in rehearsal. I’m a little ADD and he’s like, ‘If you don’t stop talking in rehearsals…’ and stuff like that. But it’s all done with a lot of love and fun.”

At the time of our conversation on June 14, Malone and the rest of the Triumph company were about to begin rehearsals for a June 24 opening.

“It reminds me of Shakespeare in Love,” she said of the role she has memorized already. “I’ve got it in the brain. It just isn’t in the body yet.”

Immediately following Triumph of Love, Malone goes to Wichita for Me and My Girl. Glaudini remains at Starlight to portray Applegate (the devil) in Damn Yankees.

“She takes a lot of out-of-town jobs,” said Glaudini, who is executive producing director at Performance Riverside. “Yeah, it’s hard, but there is some truth to ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder.’ We are both independent people and that continues to strengthen our relationship.”

Asked if they had children, Glaudini replied, “We’re still raising ourselves. We can’t even have a pet because we’re both so on-the-go all the time.”

Glaudini loves Triumph of Love, which he saw during its brief Broadway run (Betty Buckley was nominated for her portrayal of Hesione). “This was it! It’s high style, my kind of theatre. Thought provoking, witty, adult and politically incorrect. It goes back to Marivaux and the French, the French farce, their ease with sexuality, with mistaken identities. It’s just a breath of fresh air.

“It’s a wonderful score, so contemporary. You have your Broadway belt sound, the Gilbert and Sullivan motif tunes, Corine’s sexy ‘Mr. Right’ and the ‘Henchmen Are Forgotten’ number straight out of burlesque.”

Glaudini thinks we don’t laugh enough in life, that the farcical style of Triumph of Love with its sexual laissez faire provides 2 1/2 hours of delight. Add to that the original Broadway sets and costumes – and don’t forget those fabulous white trousers – and he’s certain San Diego will take the show to its heart.

Musical theatre aficionados take note: The Triumph of Love is part of Starlight’s Ovation Series and plays only four performances at 8:00 p.m. Thursday-Sunday, June 24-27. The doors open at 7:30 p.m. Starlight Bowl is located at 2005 Pan American Plaza, Balboa Park. For tickets phone (619) 544-7827 or link to Starlight’s website at