London Theatre Award Nomination Abi Morgan: 'Crying throughout ‘Lovesong’ is not obligatory, but it’s bloody hard not to. It reminds us that life is overwhelming and tough, that time is a mystery and love is a leap - nay, a bungee jump - of faith.'
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| Jan 23 |
‘Lovesong’ is an extraordinary collaboration between acclaimed writer Abi Morgan and physical theatre company Frantic Assembly. This play is a bittersweet gem, exploring the 40-year marriage and love-story of Maggie and Billy (Sian Phillips and Sam Cox), from flushed youth to jaded twilight years. Metaphors and symbols about love and time are thrust at the audience like copies of The Big Issue - but, it is horribly, heart-wrenchingly effective.
The bruised peaches that fall in the couple’s garden remind us that love is fragile. The videos of starlings rising and falling remind us that time is going, going - and Maggie’s imminent death reminds us that one day, we’ll be gone. However, Morgan’s interpretation of time renders the certainty of death into something more hopeful, more complex, than the simple end of our existence.
Past and present co-exist. Maggie and Billy’s young selves (Leanne Rowe and Edward Bennett) are as alive as old Maggie and Billy, interacting with their future selves like ghosts haunting a house. Young Maggie and Billy are so vibrant, so vigorous - do we always exist in the past? Are our younger selves still out there, somewhere?
It’s an unsettling notion, but as we watch Maggie and Billy’s stream of dance and dialogue with their fresh-faced counterparts unfold, we hope this may be so. Everything is punctured by moments of heart-stopping sadness: old Maggie dancing with young Billy, young Maggie’s grieving over never-born children, old Billy’s speech about how he shall cope when Maggie is dead : “I will...I will live like someone who used to have a life with you!”
Crying throughout ‘Lovesong’ is not obligatory, but it’s bloody hard not to. It reminds us that life is overwhelming and tough, that time is a mystery and love is a leap - nay, a bungee jump - of faith.
Photo Rob Greig
The bruised peaches that fall in the couple’s garden remind us that love is fragile. The videos of starlings rising and falling remind us that time is going, going - and Maggie’s imminent death reminds us that one day, we’ll be gone. However, Morgan’s interpretation of time renders the certainty of death into something more hopeful, more complex, than the simple end of our existence.
Past and present co-exist. Maggie and Billy’s young selves (Leanne Rowe and Edward Bennett) are as alive as old Maggie and Billy, interacting with their future selves like ghosts haunting a house. Young Maggie and Billy are so vibrant, so vigorous - do we always exist in the past? Are our younger selves still out there, somewhere?
It’s an unsettling notion, but as we watch Maggie and Billy’s stream of dance and dialogue with their fresh-faced counterparts unfold, we hope this may be so. Everything is punctured by moments of heart-stopping sadness: old Maggie dancing with young Billy, young Maggie’s grieving over never-born children, old Billy’s speech about how he shall cope when Maggie is dead : “I will...I will live like someone who used to have a life with you!”
Crying throughout ‘Lovesong’ is not obligatory, but it’s bloody hard not to. It reminds us that life is overwhelming and tough, that time is a mystery and love is a leap - nay, a bungee jump - of faith.
Photo Rob Greig
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