Type – Contemporary theatre, Live Footage Projections, Love Stories
If you liked – Boy Swallows Universe, Picture of Dorian Grey, Dracula
LOVE STORIES: A technically innovative, contemporary celebration of love, delivered by a sensitive and strong ensemble
Written during the pandemic when the world was aching for connection, Trent Dalton’s Love Stories is a contemporary exploration of love and all the different forms it takes. Adapted for stage by Tim McGarry and directed by Sam Strong with additional text by Dalton and his wife Fiona Franzmann, the production brings the collection of 2021 Brisbane stories to life in a fast paced, kaleidoscopic, multimedia production.
The text follows a writer who spends two months during the pandemic on a bustling Brisbane street corner with a table and two chairs, his typewriter and a sign that reads ‘Sentimental writer collecting love stories’. Over the course of the work, we’re introduced to more than ten characters who share their experiences of love and what it means to them. The main character of the work portrays the sentimental writer intertwining the different peoples stories driven by his own search for the meaning of love.
As we enter the theatre and take our seats, there is footage projected on the backdrop showing a theatre auditorium filling up with audience members. As we look closer, we realise it’s us on backdrop, being live streamed from the camera in the centre of the stage. It makes you feel like you’re a part of the story and reinforces the sentiment that these are everyday people’s stories.
Writing the Love Stories adaptation
The text in the play adaption leans heavily into comedic and somewhat absurd moments with a few characters who feel underdeveloped and at times, just there for shock factor entertainment. The writing frames the work through an overly rosy and optimistic lens and lacks the darker and more heart-wrenching types of love that I was hoping for. Oftentimes the Husband’s text brings us back to how the interactions reflect on his own marriage and his own narrative, which feels counterintuitive to the themes in the work.
The abundance of quick-fire interactions and punchy, funny interludes makes for an exposition heavy text that takes a while get into the guts of the love stories. There are a handful of monologues in the play which Dalton says “much of the dialogue you will hear in the theatre has been taken verbatim from the extraordinary storytellers who stopped by my typewriter”. These are the moments in the play that had me on the edge of my seat and wanting to hear more, particularly memorable is the story of Josh Creamer, local barrister and human rights activist who tells his story of land rights, family lines and his aboriginal identity. Much of the writing reflects an individuals’ deeply personal, lived experiences which I feel Dalton’s retelling does do justice to. However somewhere throughout the development, the rawness and intensity has become diluted through the layers of adjustment, editing, adaptation and interpretation.
On Stage Performances
The work opens with Jean-Benoit (Rashidi Edward) a Rwandan busker entering through an auditorium door, cheering and singing as he plays on his drum which is an upturned heavy-duty plastic bucket. In the role of Husband (and writer) is Jason Klarwein who sits on the street corner with his typewriter. Klarwein’s performance captures the suburban-Aussie tone which radiates so strongly in Dalton’s writing, while presenting a passionate, flawed, deep thinking, and charismatic character. Being on stage for much of the work, there is a sense of flexibility and fluidity in how he engages with each of the different characters which makes for a very enjoyable and watchable performance. Anna McGahan gives a generous performance as Wife, delivering many moments that feel painfully recognisable in decades-long love, complemented with a deep sense of desire to feel better connected with her love. The rest of the ten-strong ensemble each give unique and developed, texturally rich performances.
The Creative Highlight of Love Stories
The creative and technical brilliance in combining blocking, lighting, video, dance and sound is the highlight of Love Stories. Director and Dramaturg Sam Strong‘s vision integrates movement director Nerida Matthaei‘s complex blocking with live-feed visuals which are facilitated by Craig Wilkinson’s Steadicam film design. There is a Steadicam operator on stage throughout as one of the ensemble members that follows the performers, projecting the live-footage onto the backdrop that takes up the entire width of the stage. At one point there are three cameras and different views projecting concurrently behind the actors. From action sequences of bustling crowded streets, to close ups so intimate I can see the actors individual pores, to layering live footage into backdrop scenery like faces swirling into the clouds – the success of the work comes down to the precision in the finely tuned dance between camera operator and the actors on stage. The entire work is fast paced, switching between different characters storylines and the live streamed footage acts as a focus puller and provides clear segues as the plot transitions from one persons story to another. Renee Mulder’s design is minimalist and concise, regularly using a single prop to represent an entire landscape, the sparseness of which allows the talent of the actors to take centre stage in this otherwise very busy production. The result is an immersive and cinematic experience that makes the 750 seat theatre feel intimate regardless of where you’re seated. “Trent’s body of work has a knack of making the specific universal.”
Is Love Stories Worth Seeing in Sydney?
It’s an entertaining and familiar, relatable work which amalgamates story, dance and videography in an extremely innovative and mesmerising theatrical feat. Ordinary or extraordinary love, everyday love, intergenerational love, love for your culture, food or your pet, Love Stories reminds us that love is what connects us all, and is what we need to keep going.
Tickets and Practical Info for LOVE STORIES in SYDNEY 🎟️
17-20 September
Tickets from $79
Approximately 1 hr 40 mins with no interval
Contains Coarse language, Smoke Haze, Strobe and Adult Themes
Tickets: https://riversideparramatta.com.au/whats-on/trent-daltons-love-stories/
CREATIVES
Additional Writing and Story: Trent Dalton and Fiona Franzmann
Adaptor: Tim McGarry
Director/Dramaturg: Sam Strong
Choreographer, Movement Director and Intimacy Coordinator: Nerida Matthaei
Associate Director: Ngoc Phan
Set & Costume Design: Renee Mulder
Lighting Design: Ben Hughes
Video Design: Craig Wilkinson
Composition & Sound Design: Stephen Francis
CAST
Rashidi Edward – Jean Benoit
Jason Klarwein – Husband
Anna McGahan – Wife
Valerie Bader – Ensemble
Hsin-Ju Ely – Ensemble
Kirk Page – Ensemble
Ngoc Phan – Ensemble
Bryan Probets – Ensemble
Will Tran – Ensemble
Jacob Watton – Ensemble
Antony Dyer – Camera Operator
