It's been a while since a piece of theater has made me cry not from mere sadness or pity, but from witnessing the pain caused by lost love and overwhelming hubris. But Louis and Keely Live at the Sahara, which has just reopened at the Geffen Playhouse, ends on such a devastating note. Indeed, the performances of writers and stars Jake Broder and Vanessa Claire Smith, who play singers Louis Prima and Keely Smith -- aided by the show's new director, Taylor Hackford -- connect so deeply that their despair almost physically spills off into the audience.

In the 1940s, the big-voiced Prima had already become a has-been. Though his swing anthem "Sing Sing Sing" had become a standard, his New Orle[...]