Written by A.R.
Gurney
Director: Denny
Lawrence
Presented by
Christine Harris & HIT Productions
Q Theatre,
Queanbeyan, May 21 to 24, 2014
Review by Len Power
21 May 2014
‘Love
Letters’, first performed in the USA in 1989, has already had an extraordinary
life with just about every famous theatre performer you can imagine having a go
at it. At last we had an opportunity to
see it at the Q Theatre in Queanbeyan with Huw Higginson from TV’s ‘The Bill’
and his wife, Hannah Waterman, best known for her role in ‘Eastenders’.
Written
by A.R. Gurney, the play centres on two fictional well-to-do Americans, Melissa
Gardner and Andrew Makepeace Ladd III. Covering nearly 50 years, we witness their early
hopes and dreams and share their disappointments, successes and failures
through their correspondence with each other as they lead their separate lives.
Simply
staged by director, Denny Lawrence, it’s the skill of the performers that makes
this production a success. Both actors
read their letters from separate lecterns separated by a window representing
the type of grand-looking houses these people would live in. There is no other movement on stage. Huw Higginson is especially touching as a
gentle man concerned to do the right thing by everyone while Hannah Waterman
shines as a waspish but emotionally needy woman unhappily locked into a life
that seems to have been mapped out for her since birth.
The
static nature of this work could easily work against it but this production works
extremely well with careful pacing, lots of light and shade in the delivery by
the actors, overlapping dialogue and flashes of humour. The audience is drawn into the details of the
lives of these people against a background of the manners and morals of these
particular fifty years or so in American history.
The
simple but effective set design is by Jacob Battista and the lighting plot
complements the set and gives a good impression of time passing with various
fades and colour changes.
The
director, Denny Lawrence has done an excellent job with all aspects of this
production. The ending of the play is
very moving, even though you can see it coming.
It was a play I had been curious about for a very long time and I was
not disappointed.
Originally
broadcast on Artsound FM 92.7’s ‘Dress Circle’ program with Bill Stephens
Sunday 26 May 2014