Lovesong

Lovesong is provoking, stimulating and the best piece of filmed theatre I’ve seen all year. Written by Abi Morgan who has four actors, Edward Bennett, Sam Cox, Siân Phillips, Leanne Rowe, on stage nearly all the time, the play portrays the lives of a couple in their twenties, and then, a lifetime later when they are in their eighties Their past and present selves collide in this haunting and beautiful, warts-and-all tale of togetherness and loss.

A dentist and his wife, newly wed, decide to ditch the comforts of the city and move to the country. There are already dentists in this town but unphased, they decide that it doesn’t matter where they live, love will see them through. Forty years later we see the daunting present as elements of mental deterioration creeping into the husband's life as he copes, firstly, with his wife’s terminal illness and then with her death, and, dwells on his memories of their life together, seen by us as phantom visitations of their younger selves.

The portrayal of the couple's relationship feels true: fleeting affairs that both were involved in, the desire they both felt for a neighbour and the disappointment of not having their own child and extending the seed of their union beyond themselves all mingle into a compelling account of the far-from-perfect reality of life.

At times I was a little unsure as to where the actors were taking me, but Lovesong builds wondrously into a touching meditation on loss and separation through death that will leave many moist-eyed. Faced with the overwhelming mystery and wonder of life, he sums up  its transitory nature in terms that he can understand:  the act of cleaning one’s teeth, a small ritual but significant to him “...for when we are dug up a thousand years from now, the only surviving parts of our anatomy will be the teeth. We must protect our teeth ... “

FYI: Lovesong is a production of Digital Theatre and is available to watch online.
 

 

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