Love Letters

This play is a unique experience for the audience as it is invited to absorb the emotions and storytelling completely by the spoken word. There is no managed stage movement at all.  The two characters, Melissa and Andrew, met in childhood and we follow their lives and dreams from notes, letters and cards that they wrote right through to their twilight years. We engage with their dreams and disappointments, their awkward adolescence, their mature misgivings and, of course, their many missed opportunities. This play was written by A R Gurney in 1988 – and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. It is still unique in so many ways.

The staging was remarkably simple in that it consisted of a bare stage other than two tables and chairs where the performers sat to read their memories fromtheir enormous correspondence throughout their lives. I was not distracted, I had to listen. I was glad I did. Gloria Swenson was the voice of Melissa. She was a little soft and unclear initially but developed the role well. Husband Ray Swenson was the voice of Andrew, who prospered the most of the two of the writers. He had a good clear delivery but I felt that how the notes were read should have more reflected the feelings of the writer at the time of the writing. This would have added to the thoughts and feelings of them both.

This was an interesting concept for a play and overall it succeeded really well. The good clear delivery of the two performers led us through this strange relationship – we wanted to know more. I wondered, at the time, as to how many of the young of today even know what a letter is, never mind a love letter.

William Davies