‘Love doesn’t make the world go round. Love makes the ride  worthwhile’

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

A R Gurney’s  actor friendly play LOVE LETTERS (1988), ( in that there is no requirement to learn lines), with its clear structure, has had a long and successful history.  An actor and an actress take to the stage with scripts in hand, and sit at separate tables.

The two actors become the very well to do  WASP’s (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants) Andrew Makepeace Ladd III and Melissa Gardner. They read extracts from their correspondence, spanning close to fifty years, beginning in childhoo..

Over the years many actors have performed the play. Being a fan of the classic old sit coms I would have loved to be  an audience member in the New York theatre in 1990 when Larry Hagman and Barbara Eden of ‘I Dream Of Jeannie’ performed the play.

Rockdale’s Guild Theatre are currently running a five week season of the play.  Each week two new actors take to the stage to bring Gurney’s play to life, sensitively directed by the NIDA trained and highly experienced actor and director Lyn Lee.  Real life couples perform on four of the five weeks.

In the Theatre Guild’s media release to promote the show the publicist poses the question, ‘Can you know someone more from their letters than you do in person?’

The great 16th  Century English poet John Donne clearly thought so, and wrote, ‘More  than kisses,  letters mingle souls.’ I second that sentiment.

Gurney’s  eloquently written letters effectively do the two essential things brilliantly; move the narrative forward and reveal character.

They say that opposites attract.  This is  the case with these two characters.  Just an aside – how do writers manage it, create such authentic characters, as A R Gurney does?!

Andrew Makepeace Ladd 111 is a writer type, melancholic, cerebral and even more  to the point, staid, conservative.  His working career sees him become a US Senator, committing to a life of public service.

Melissa Gardner is  an artist, intensely emotional, vivacious, and more than a little outrageous.  She is always trying  to tease Ladd out of his conservativeness, to see him loosen up just a tad.

They have their own lives to lead  and whilst they often plan to meet up, say at one of Gardner’s art exhibition, they rarely do. They fall out with each other occasionally but always manage to brush it off.

The opening night of the Theatre Guild’s season featured  David and Dawn  Pointen.

David Pointon plays the very considered, reflective, articulate well. Gardner is the more colourful character with more room for an actor to move. Dawn Pointen is outstanding as the vivacious  Gardner, whose emotions are very easy to read, and you can see the frustration she has with Ladd at times.

In regards to technical values, David Pointon’s ‘enclosed’ set design is effective, and I really enjoyed Roger Hind and Ruth Lowry’s subtle, atmospheric lighting design.

A R Gurney’s LOVE LETTERS, the Rockdale Theatre Guild’s last production for 2023, is playing the Guild Theatre, Walz Street, Rockdale until the 2nd December 2023. On  Wednesdays the performances will take place as matinees rather than evening performances.

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Featured image – The entire cast of the Guild Theatre’s five week run of ‘Love Letters’. Photography Grant Leslie