Love is a Noun

‘Love is a Noun’ is a love story mingled with black comedy, it was written by award-winning, WA playwright Daniel Jon Kershaw. This play was originally seen as the much shorter, 1-Act version about a year ago in the ITA Festival at the Marloo Theatre.

Daniel’s earlier works were great fun, but a bit rough at the edges, verging on crude and blatant, often falling a little flat towards the end. Now he has produced a very high quality, beautifully written and structured play. This is not just the original padded out to fill the required 90 minutes; it has new threads and dialogue. The quality is such that you can see that this is not a flash in the pan, but that he really has acquired a strong grasp of playwriting skills. The dialogue terminology, style and sentence structure has been carefully considered for each character.

Blak Yak Theatre Inc. is presenting this most enjoyable play in conjunction with Garrick Theatre Company. The performances can now be seen at the Garrick Theatre Club, 16 Meadow Street, Guildford. The show starts at 8.00 pm until Saturday 4^th May. There is one matinee at 2.00 pm on Sunday the 28^th April.

Cicely has already given an excellent review, but this is how I (similarly) saw it.

The stage is totally black, with a large, rear flat and surrounding black drapes. A table and chair are at the side.

       As the lights rise, we find ourselves in the home of Alyce (Leoni Leaver) and her confused, but caring partner, Lachlan (Bradley Keith Towton). He is baffled because this vision of beauty is about to leave him. So facing the audience Lachlan argues his case, perplexed, he explains how love can be the most uplifting thing in the world, and how its withdrawal can leave a hollow shell and huge pain. Alyce is amazed at one of Lachlan’s metaphors, but just as she is softening to his pleading, he puts his foot in it once more and she storms out.

       Alyce is next seen visiting her Gran, Mauve (Lis Hoffmann) in her old folks' home and as Alyce lovingly rubs in skin cream, her cantankerous elderly relative tells her about her wartime boyfriend, Ralph (Tim Wingfield) and their courtship. (In the wartime scenes, young Mauve is played by Zoe Hollyoak.) Gran spots that Alyce is pregnant simply by her ‘aura’ and orders her to get back to Lachlan.

       Will Alyce and Lachlan get together again? What happened two generations ago during the war?

Director Lorna Mackie has clearly depicted the two love affairs in parallel, showing unmistakably how attitudes, compassion and standards have changed. The script for the different ages and eras has been carefully researched, and one suspects ‘learnt the hard way’. You can understand the present day couple being reasonably easy to write for, but the author’s grasp and portrayal of the war years (30 years before his birth) is superbly accurate.

Kershaw has tackled all aspects of love, and yet managed to retain a good flow to the story, without it appearing contrived. The whole cast are wonderful; through them, director has managed to explain the depth of each person’s traits and their failings. With the controlling matriarchal attitudes of the Gran, and the powerfully moving and desperate plight of Alyce, the brief mention of Lachlan’s upbringing helped explain yet another facet of the couple’s life together. We all ‘know’ every person created in the play; this is truly a peak at our own relatives.

The costumes and hairstyles were excellent (Lynda Stubbs, Lorna Mackie), they captured the war years and present day, both plainly displayed the characteristics of the family members. Ralph’s boxer shorts were not around in the war years, but the common, open-fronted cotton underpants – Y-fronts still hadn’t been invented either – would have put the performance into the R18+ rating.

There weren’t many props but with two eras, running parallel the contrast needed to be accurate and Sherryl Spencer had chosen carefully.

The lighting (Clayton Reichert, Mike McAllan) played a major part in isolating the characters and helping them deliver their private messages to the audience. The technical manager was Linda Redman)

Kershaw’s storylines were intelligent and well intertwined. The clever ending deftly drew back from over sentimentality. This is a quality type of play that is cheap to produce, inoffensive and will appeal to community theatre groups everywhere. The audience loved this ‘feel good’ production. I look forward to his next play.