Imagine keeping up a correspondence that lasts more than 50 years. It's a certain kind of love - a connection between two people that begins with simple notes exchanged in class and runs throughout their adult lives, lasting beyond death.
Love Letters, a Pulitzer Prize-nominated play by American playwright and novelist A.R. Gurney, describes this intimate connection. It will be Driftwood Players fall production, opening Sept. 3 at the Heritage Playhouse in Gibsons.
The two characters, straight arrow Andrew and off-the-wall Melissa, are opposites.
"He's as buttoned down as she is messy," said the play's actor and director Susan Beer, who also confesses to loving the character whose role she is portraying. "Typically this play is cast by two people who have already established chemistry on stage."
Beer has performed it previously in community theatre in Washington. Beer and actor/entertainer George Grafton, who plays Andrew, have that chemistry. They first noticed it while appearing in Driftwood's popular Ten Lost Years, and they have sung together in Broadway Meets the Classics.
They were comic partners, Reverend and Penelope Toop, in dinner theatre's See How They Run. Now they're together again - a bit like the comedy duo of George Burns and Gracie Allen, suggests Grafton. By playing a bland conservative who is being groomed for the senate, Grafton's challenge is not to break into song, he quips.
This is a pared down play - a simple stage set and two characters performing in a split screen format. But the impact is dramatic, Grafton said. It moved him personally.
Audiences can relate to Andrew's view of life, but can also sympathize with Melissa, the messy alcoholic. Better bring tissues for the last scene.
Stage manager Suzanne Pemberton and producer Sandi McGinnis make up the rest of this simplified production, which will go on the road. The play will run in Gibsons, Sechelt and Madeira Park.
Love Letters opens at the Heritage Playhouse at 8 p.m., and runs Saturday, Sept. 4 for one matinée and one evening performance. That's it, Gibsons folks, so don't delay. The production moves to the Arts Centre in Sechelt for evening performances on Sept. 10 and 11 with a matinée on Sept. 12. Madeira Park audiences can see one more performance at the Music School on Sept. 25. Tickets for $15 matinée and $20 evening are available at Gaia's Fair Trade, Hallmark Cards, the Arts Centre, WindSong Gallery and Harbour Insurance.
