You’d better visit the loo before this one folks - it’s only 90 minutes long but there’s no interval, and we know what it’s like when you’ve scored that pre-theatre beer and think you’ll be OK. You never are.
Anyway, this new play by John Kolvenbach comes to London along with some notable faces. You’ll know Cillian Murphy for his leading role as a zombie dodger in 28 Days Later. He was also in Red Eye and Batman Returns, but it’s Neve Campbell we were most looking forward to seeing – if only because her part as the tormented Sidney in the Scream trilogy made us want to give her a big hug. Kristen Johnston also stars here, best known for her part as screechy Sally Soloman in 3rd Rock from the Sun, and completing the foursome is Michael Mckean of This is Spinal Tap.
Conveniently titled, Love Song is indeed a symphony of emotions – those running riot in the house of a loving yet bickering married couple, Joan and Harry, and those just starting to bubble between Joan’s depressed brother Beane and a mysterious girl called Molly, whom he catches breaking into his miserable bedsit. Joan’s concerned for her brother, but as she watches him fall for Molly, it quickly becomes apparent that in his growing happiness lies the answer to her own. Her marriage suddenly improves – we love the cute scene in which a bashful Harry reminisces about a first encounter and likens her scent to that of a melon. For a while, things are great, but a sudden twist to the story means that all is not what it seems in Beane’s sudden romance.
Kolvenbach mixes his interestingly observed tale of modern American life, with a softer display of redemptive love. Whilst Joan argues with Harry over her ideas for helping Beane, it’s only when she’s acknowledged her own hidden issues that she can truly offer her brother the support he needs. For a while, the play has you chuckling along with its witty script. Addictive Kristen lights up the stage with satirical glances and chuckles that speak a thousand words, even when she’s flicking through magazines in the background. Our eyes love her on stage, like the camera loves her on telly. Mckean too is the perfect middle-aged husband; cute, kind and persevering in light of his wife’s tirade. Neve Campbell is passionate and intense as Molly and in a scene where she and Beane describe “finding” each other, their words are like poetry and their chemistry’s electric. You can almost ignore that the script in this part breaks rather drastically the steady rhythm of the play up to this point. It is perhaps a little too angst-ridden, a little too Dawson’s Creek, and a little too far away from the otherwise plausible enactments of the character’s “every day life” situations.
Still, with a cast like this, an unexpected twist, and a script that hammers your heartstrings at the same time as making you think, we reckon the hype around this Love Song won’t fade out in a hurry.
By Becky Wicks
Love Song was brilliant... I went to see it on Monday night thanks to lastminute,com. I laughed so much as well as actually feeling like you were going through the emotions with them. All the cast were amazing, especially Cillian. I would recommend this to anyone and everyone a definite must see.
Posted by: Nicola Franklin | 08/12/2006 at 11:55 AM