Serious and Comical Missives of ‘Love’

Anyone who’s ever struggled to heave a riotous heart into words--which is to say, probably all of us at one time or another--will appreciate the eloquence and grace of the correspondence between famous artists compiled by the Fountain Theatre’s Deborah Lawlor in “Declarations: Love Letters of the Great Romantics.”

Emotional epiphanies abound in 20 staged excerpts spanning two centuries--a kind of literary “Love Letters” sans the dramatic continuity. Among the high points are meditations by Robert and Elizabeth Browning (Eric Zivot and Gillian Doyle) on the inadequacy of words, Colette (Doyle) celebrating her independent spirit in a letter to an unknown lover, touching reflections by Agnes de Mille (Claire Malis Callaway) on the vulnerability of her beloved, probing exploration of sexual mores by Henry Miller (Zivot) and Anais Nin (Donya Gianotta).

Recurring zany interludes between Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald (Gianotta and Alan Goodson ) provide comic relief to the strains of Scott Joplin rags (music is inventively woven throughout the piece).

Not all the characterizations are on point--Callaway’s George Sand misses widely, and Zivot’s Oscar Wilde, writing to his lover from prison, lacks any trace of the physical hardship that left him a broken man.

A pair of strikingly graceful dancers (Tamica Washington and Ken Morris) provide visual embellishment, though sometimes to the point of distraction--part of an overall tendency toward theatrical overcompensation for what is at bottom a staged recital.

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* “Declarations: Love Letters of the Great Romantics,” Fountain Theatre, 5060 Fountain Ave., Hollywood. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m.; this Sunday, 3 p.m. Ends March 21. $15. (213) 663-1525. Running time: 1 hour, 55 minutes.