Love Letters

Love Letters
By A.R. Gurney. HIT Productions. Directed by Denny Lawrence. Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre (The Q). 21–24 May 2014 and touring nationally

Love Letters takes the unusual format of the reading by their character authors of a correspondence between two lifelong friends, both at various times desperate to become lovers and more.  The correspondence could work as a short story, but then you’d be missing something vital, because the subtle body language infuses the dialogue not only with life but also with what shines between the lines.

 

And the lines themselves are pretty entertaining; this is an affair of the heart that comes to life in the protagonists’ words.

 

Real-life couple Huw Higginson and Hannah Waterman play, respectively, Andrew Makepeace Lad III, a principled if orthodox future senator; and Melissa Gardner, an unorthodox artist, and the two spar unceasingly throughout.  Realistic, funny, sad, and moving, this timeless work records a friendship that could be real for any of us, and both players seemed to be as genuinely touched by it as we were.  A good hour and a half’s entertainment with heart.

 

John P. Harvey

 

Image: Hannah Waterman and Huw Higginson, in Love Letters. Photographer: Belinda Strodder.

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