Tanya and Annie are in love. Tanya and Annie are terribly young. Tanya and Annie met in jail. Their love story is certainly not a fairy tale, and there aren’t many people around to teach them the best way to take care of each other. But in spite of the unloving world they live in, Tanya and Annie make a pact to love each other. They make plans – to get a house, to go somewhere new, maybe even to get a dog – but only after they’ve made a little money. But when Tanya finds herself back in jail, Annie latches onto Lorenzo. Lorenzo claims to love Annie, but he might be more in love with the drugs she brings him.
Patricia Cornelius (Do Not Go Gentle), multi-award-winning playwright and founding member of Melbourne Workers Theatre, brings her signature knack for sparse, direct, and quietly poetic dialogue to this uncomfortable love triangle.
Penned in 2004, Love is an understated play that tells a story about people who aren’t usually given a place on Australian stages, leaving the audience to form their own opinions or judgements. 21 years later, Megan Sampson directs this new production presented by New Ghosts Theatre Company, which slides into the Late Night slot at the Old Fitz (alongside another piercing story of class struggle, Iphigenia in Splott, in the Mainstage session). The piece is as important and confronting as ever, but working with such a raw, sparse text is a delicate procedure.
Georgia-Paige Theodos plays Tanya, the butch protector, with a quiet devotion, her desperation barely hidden beneath the surface. In contrast, Izzy William’s Annie is raw, crying out for a caretaker – her final scenes, in which she begs to be loved, are harrowing to witness. Rhys Johnson’s Lorenzo is a little underdeveloped, seeming somewhat two-dimensional in comparison to Tanya and Annie’s complicated chemistry. Costuming by Rita Naidu is also lacking – without much else to focus on in this sparse staging, it becomes clear that their outfits are a little too polished for the downtrodden characters they represent. Meanwhile, the lighting design by Izzy Morrissey, much like the writing, is subtle and understated, allowing for shifts in tone to shine without pulling focus.
In such an emotionally raw piece as Love, the devil really is in the detail. This production is an admirable and important one, bringing one of Patricia Cornelius’s most lauded plays back to Sydney for the first time since 2018, but it somewhat struggles to live up to the legacy and the intent behind it.
Love is playing at the Old Fitz Theatre, Woolloomooloo, until March 21. Tickets are on sale over here.
Time Out tip: You’ll save 20% when you book tickets to both the Mainstage and Late Night shows at the Time Out Recommended Old Fitz Theatre. Australia's last-standing pub theatre, you'll find it downstairs at the Old Fitzroy Hotel (which is a top spot for a pre-show dinner, as well as post-show debriefs over a pint).
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