This was a very different and, in its own way, adventurous night at the theatre.
In Jeanette Cronin’s play we find a forties something couple whose relationship is on the rocks. They have booked a night in a hotel room in the hope that they rekindle some of the old magic.
June suggests that they do some fantasy, role playing stuff. Straight way I am reminded of Harold Pinter’s classic play on this theme, The Lover.
Leo is up for it. June kicks off by suggesting that he leave the room and come back as Leo twenty years younger.
For the next hour and a half or so we are in the world of play – literally! Most of the time they are playing other characters and situations. For instance – Leo goes with Michelle. June is having an affair with Rob, Leo’s brother. On the side, Leo is also having an affair with Melissa, the nanny. Meanwhile, June is also bonking Helmut, her personal trainer.
We are also in the world of dance with recurring vignettes of the performers, presumably as June and Leo, attempting to master the tango.
Once in a while Leo and June come back together and discuss where they are at.
The end of the play sees the couple, still in the hotel room, make that big decision – to stay together or to go their separate ways.
Isabel Hudson’s staging works well. We are in a hotel room. The design’s main aspects : stage centre is a large double bed. Far stage right is an alcove area, representing the bathroom, but mainly used for actors to disappear into, to change character, costume, use props et al. Far stage right is the main door which gets plenty of use during the course of the play!
A glass fencing, for want of a better word, stretched across the back of the stage, behind which two very fine Sydney musicians are perched; Max Lambert on keyboards and Roger Lock on guitar. With their improvisational playing, they directly respond to the action taking place directly in front of them.
The play is a two hander with Jeanette Cronin and Paul Gleeson playing Leo and June and their assortment of colourful characters. They are both charming actors and give satisfying performances.
I am going to be harsh in my view about this show. I found Jeanette’s piece too long and cumbersome. The piece at times lacked clarity, at other times it was repetitive. There was the sense that the play did not know what it wanted to be – a drama, an erotic piece, a farce?!
Kim Hardwick’s direction was a disappointment. Hardwick should have ensured that the production was tighter and clearer. Perhaps her process was made difficult by the writer also being the main performer.
I appreciate that the play was about a couple trying to rediscover their love for each other. The tango scenes with the theme of the lovers coming close and then pushing away worked well. I got that it was June who was the partner who was pushing to keep the relationship and was making herself very vulnerable in her attempt to keep her man.
Still, it has to be said, that, at times, the play felt like it was more to do with Leo and June exploring their sexual fantasies than their feelings of love.
I enjoyed the show’s live music aspect provided by Lambert and Lock and it added lightness to what was, in many respects, a heavy performance.
The times that I enjoyed the play the most were in its lighter moments. These were the times when Cronin played around with the farcical aspects in the situation and we saw actors running around the stage and witnessed plenty of ominous knocking on the hotel room door.
My favourite scene…Jeanette is bed and has hurriedly and not so skilfully disposed of her underwear, ready for an erotic encounter. Her man comes to the door and tries to open it and what happens. The door is locked!
Darlinghurst Theatre Company’s production of Jeanette Cronin’s I LOVE YOU NOW, directed by Kim Hardwick, is playing the Eternity Playhouse, 39 Burton Street, Darlinghurst until the 9th July. For performance times and to purchase tickets visit www.darlinghursttheatre.com.au