Love, apparently, is three good things, so these are mine: my grandma, telling me she was the first person to see me when I was born; my best friend, sending me flowers from halfway across the world on my birthday because she just wanted me to know she loved me; and Guns N Roses, because to this day I’m convinced that everything I am is because of them, and because I can’t think of anything that incites a purer passion in me than that band. But, if there was something else – if there was another thing I might add to these good things, to this list of what love means – I think it might be Trent Dalton’s Love Stories.
You see, something extraordinary happened last night. For the first time in my life, I cried watching a play.
That probably doesn’t mean much to a lot of people, but I ought to tell you the context. This isn’t just the first time I’ve cried in a play. In all my twenty years of existence, I have not cried in a film, a book, a television show, a theatre production – nothing. Even music – although it’s possibly the core of my life, the fundamental force that shapes who I am – only one song has ever made me cry. And until Friday, I’d basically just accepted it wasn’t going to happen, that it wasn’t how I engaged with things. But Trent Dalton’s Love Stories may have changed everything.
As is no doubt obvious from the title, Love Stories is a play about love. It’s love in all forms, certainly not just romantic – there are couples, couples married for years, couples who have just met, couples in the midst of shattering breakups – but there’s also parents and children, friendships, familial love. The stories of those who loved so deeply their hearts were broken, and those whose love may be for nothing more – yet, is no lesser for it – than a patch of blue sky, or a dance move, or, I suppose, even an 80s rock band. Trent Dalton’s account of his interactions with Brisbane’s loving and beloved are brought to vivid, joyous life on stage in Love Stories, offering a hundred wonder-filled minutes that will find a way to entrance any viewer, whatever their view on love.
Indeed, when I met with the play’s director, Sam Strong, for a quick chat after the show, this is what he cites as potentially the greatest strength of Love Stories. Every viewer, he reckons, has a different point of connection to the play, a different reason why it will grab hold of their heart and pull them into this remarkable world where love is everything. And, because of this, the play is not just one thing. It’s not just Trent Dalton’s story or Brisbane’s story, it’s not even really just one play, because every viewer will come into the theatre bringing a different history that will affect how they engage with the play and will transform what they take from it. I’d even wager that what I got from it on opening night might be entirely different to what I would get from it were I to watch its final show on March 8th, because who knows how things will have changed by then? The point is, there are no limits on what Love Stories can offer people, because there are no limits on what a love story is.
Our own connectedness to the play becomes even more apparent when one considers how effectively costuming is employed throughout Trent Dalton’s Love Stories. Most cast members play multiple roles and with each actor changing their base costume only slightly across each different character, the overriding impression is of continuity and sameness. Not in such a way that the stories are unoriginal or not unique – this could hardly be further from the truth – but simply in the sense that with each scene, viewers are struck by the overwhelming universality of love. The characters are different but all are profoundly, undeniably human and irrevocably united by their experience of love.
So, if you have a chance, I can’t recommend highly enough that you go and see Love Stories at the IPAC this week. With a truly enchanting soundtrack, a creative team of extraordinary capability, and raw, heartfelt performances from every cast member, few viewers will fail to be touched by Trent Dalton’s Love Stories. You’ll be challenged and you’ll think – you might even cry, like I was so unprepared to find myself doing as I watched it – but most of all I think you’ll smile, because, as the play tells us, love is three good things. And this play is a very, very good thing.
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