Ladies Write Letters of Lemony Love

Do not be misled by the rather twee title.  In 1901 and into 1902, two intelligent, articulate young women, Isobel (Meg Hickey) and Henrietta (Maeve Hook) write to each other.  They’re friends in the remote rural town of Toobloodyfaraway in the wheat belt of south-west Victoria.  At first, their letters are brief and bright girlish notes.  But then they are separated when Henrietta moves to Melbourne. 

One must be very attentive to the subtext in Maeve Hook’s literate period dialogue: this is a story of love between two women at a time when rigid restrictions and expectations controlled women’s lives.  To aggravate the confusion, this is also the time of the struggle for women’s suffrage with all that talk of ‘freedom’.  Henrietta – who soon signs her letters ‘Henry’ – and Isobel themselves seem at first not quite to understand and their feelings for each other. 

As Bathsheba says in Thomas Hardy’s 1874 novel Far From the Madding Crowd , ‘It is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in language which is chiefly made by men to express theirs.’ 

Maeve Hook, who plays Henrietta with presence and confidence, also directs and edits, making skilful use of the online form.  She suggests distance and separation by brief shots of the view from a moving train through bush.  She intercuts Isobel and ‘Henry’, briefly adding cheerful suitor Bertie (Harrison Clark) and Isobel’s interfering Mama, Margaret (Carolyn Bock).  Lemony Love is like an 18^th century epistolatory novel, telling its whole story in letters without narration, each character speaking their letters to the camera – to us.  When passions rise – such as when Isobel refuses to reply to Henry’s letters - that’s reflected in the suddenly abrupt rhythm of the intercutting.  Ms Hook has also pulled off that difficult task of giving her characters speech patterns and vocabulary that sound absolutely ‘period’ but are totally comprehensible.  Liliana Macarone’s music moves from sprightly fun to emotional turmoil, yet never intruding too much on the characters’ thoughts and emotions.

Isobel and Henrietta are clearly delineated as characters, in casting, performance, wardrobe and the settings in which they write their letters.  Isobel, buttoned up in high neck blouses, is the more delicate, openly passionate and emotional, while Henrietta is the leader, strong, a rational realist, clearer about her feelings.  She’s ahead of Isobel – she knows clearly much sooner what they feel for each and can suggest that in her letters.  When she elects to marry, to Isobel’s heartbreaking distress, she writes that marriage is the only choice ‘for such as us in the eyes of the law.’  That ‘such as us’ is the closest she gets to what she might say – or would today.  There is nothing salacious or overtly physical made explicit.  But the very restraint makes the women’s feelings all the more felt – by them and by us. 

Mr Clark’s Bertie is necessary and likeable, but perhaps not quite so successful – a touch too scruffy, too hail-fellow-well-met and obliging?  And does the writing for Carolyn Bock’s Margaret, Isobel’s Mama, push the heavy irony of her presumptuous advice on marriage – to Henrietta – too far?  But these are brief lapses from the strong and developing narrative thread.  

The ‘lemony’ seems to refer to the use of lemon juice as ‘invisible ink’, the writing on the page revealed in the heat of candle flame.  (The actual handwriting we see seems to me the only ‘period detail’ the show gets wrong.)  But, in fact, there is no need of invisible ink; the surface meaning of the women’s letters may be passionate and emotional, yes, but merely that of very close friends missing each other.  Ladies Write Letters of Lemony Love is a rather surprising and thoughtful achievement among the more rambunctious, or satiric, or cabaret offerings in this year’s Fringe.

In just about forty-five minutes, Maeve Hook – who originally trained as a circus performer! - has pulled off something quietly impressive.  I hope we will see more from her and soon.

Michael Brindley