Playwright: The Company. At: Genesis Ensemble at The Charnel House, 3421 W. Fullerton. Tickets: www.genesisensemble.org; $10. Runs through: Aug. 30
A theater piece tracing the evolution of the American love letter is a brilliant, high-concept idea. However, if the Genesis Ensemble is honest, it will close this show quickly and go back to the drawing board with a deeper and more profound commitment, and more mature literary and directorial guidance. The show they’ve mounted is shallow, juvenile and far too brief at 50 minutes to do its subject justice. Why not treat it as a warm-up, a study, and come back in the springtime (when thoughts turn to love) with the real thing?
The show holds that the changing technologies of communication—from quill, ink and paper to tweets—have altered the content and style of individual communications, including love letters. But there’s nothing new in that, so the deeper focus of the show must be on love letters themselves and not on brief sections of love messages as examples of changing technologies, which is all that comes across. In short, this idea needs to offer longer, better and more ardent examples of love letters from each era and technology it chooses to present. Even in our age of instant messaging, some lovers are capable of greater literary style and wit than others, and it is the best examples which need to be offered rather than the mostly-bland choices the Genesis Ensemble has made.
In Love’s Bright Coils does not provide context (or sources) for any of the love messages it quotes, and it needs to do so. Rather than starting in the 18th century and then jumping immediately to the 21st century as it does, it needs to spend sufficient time establishing the parameters of the technologies and sentiments of each era, and how they relate to each other. The current effort offers snippets so short, one cannot make an emotional connection with the correspondents. The only emotional rule appears to be that if a letter/message indicates a break-up, the actors shout and thrash about the stage violently. But some break-ups are soft and quiet, aren’t they? Do capital letters in a text message always indicate screaming?
Genesis needs to grasp variety and nuance as well. There are love letters of courtship, proposal, acceptance, rejection, ardor, eroticism, desire, longing, etc. Always have been, always will be. There also are letters of love—distinct from “love” letters—those communications between longtime partners expressive of separation, loneliness, caring, yearning, prayerfulness, kindness, advice.
If Genesis is to create a meaningful work on the evolution of the American love letter, they must take all of this into account. It’s an odd theater piece that purports to be about communication yet amply demonstrates that it doesn’t trust words or savor language, especially words of love so soft and tender.