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Love Letters
Love Letters
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Author: A.R. Gurney Publisher: Dramatists Play Service Format: Softcover # of Pages: 81 Pub. Date: 1989 ISBN-10: 0822206943 ISBN-13: 9780822206941 Cast Size: 1 woman, 1 man Instructor: 1 female, 1 male
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About
the Play:
Love Letters was a Finalist for the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for
Drama
Love Letters is a classic two-character full-length hit
play by A.R. Gurney. A unique and imaginative theatre piece
which, in the words of the author, "needs no theatre, no
lengthy rehearsal, no special set, no memorization of lines, and no
commitment from its two actors beyond the night of performance."
The piece is comprised of letters exchanged over a lifetime between
two people who grew up together, went their separate ways, but
continued to share confidences. As the actors read the letters aloud,
what is created is an evocative, touching, frequently funny but
always telling pair of character studies in which what is implied is
as revealing and meaningful as what is actually written down. After
all the letters, have they made the right choices along the way?
Love Letters is the playwright's most produced play with
its two-character cast who sit side by side at a desk; a man and a
woman who share their complicated, loving and lasting friendship
through 50 years of correspondence. Andrew Makepeace Ladd III and
Melissa Gardner, both born to wealth and position, are childhood
friends whose lifelong correspondence begins with birthday party
thank-you notes and summer camp postcards. Romantically attached,
they continue to exchange letters through the boarding school and
college years – where Andy goes on to excel at Yale and law school,
while the rebellious Melissa flunks out of a series of "good
schools." While Andy is off at war Melissa marries, but her
attachment to Andy remains strong and she continues to keep in touch
as he marries, becomes a successful attorney, gets involved in
politics and, eventually, is elected to the U.S. Senate. Meanwhile,
her marriage in tatters, Melissa dabbles in art, enters into
destructive relationships, drinks more than she should, and becomes
estranged from her children. Eventually she and Andy do become
involved in a brief affair, but it is really too late for both of
them. However Andy's last letter, written to her mother after
Melissa's untimely death, makes it eloquently clear how much they
really meant, and gave to, each other over the years – physically
apart, perhaps, but spiritually as close as only true lovers can be.
Love Letters is tender, funny, and nuanced examination of the
shared nostalgia, missed opportunities, and deep closeness of two
lifelong, complicated friends.
Love Letters was first performed in 1987 at the New York
Public Library by A.R Gurney himself with Holland Taylor, then
opened in 1988 at the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut.
Since then it has been performed in theater spaces all over the
world, from community theatres to Broadway to Carnegie Hall and back
again..
Cast: 1 female, 1 male
What people say:
"A.R. Gurney's
finest work, and one of the four or five best American plays of the
'80s." — Time
"Exhilarating, funny, and
moving." — The Wall Street Journal
"Delightful … entertaining …
satisfying … The most charming play to date of a charming writer."
— The New York Observer
"A mini-epic … Dialogue this
fine can speak for itself." — USA Today
"A.R. Gurney is
an extraordinarily precise and economical writer … His virtues have
seldom been better displayed than they are in Love
Letters." — New York Daily News
About the Playwright:
A.R. Gurney (1930-2017) is known as one of the most
prolific and produced playwrights in America. His work focuses
primarily on the issues and realities of middle-class American life
and has been produced on international theatre stages for more than
50 years. He is also the author of three novels and a two-time
Pulitzer Prize for Drama nominee, the recipient of the Drama Desk
Award, and the Award of Merit from the Academy and Institute of Arts
and Letters.
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