Love and Information

Last updated

Love and Information
Written by Caryl Churchill
Date premieredSeptember 2012 (2012-09)
Place premiered Royal Court Theatre
Original languageEnglish

Love and Information is a play written by the British playwright Caryl Churchill. It first opened at the Royal Court Theatre in September 2012. It received many positive reviews from critics.

Contents

Synopsis

The play is a compilation of seven sections each with a number of scenes that range from less than a minute in length to a few minutes long. The seven sections of the play must be done in order; however, the scenes/vignettes within each section can be done in whatever order the director wishes. The "random" section of scenes, included at the end of the play, are able to be incorporated anywhere within the play. The loose structure of the play and the wide range of casting options—nothing is specific in terms of casting—allows the director ample freedom to develop the storyline of the play along with the particular themes and questions they want to highlight with their production. Within the play are over 100 characters, but none of the characters are named and they can be double cast. After watching the play, writer Jennifer Wilkinson wrote, "The play asks us to consider how meaning is constructed and to participate in the process. The script has few stage directions, the characters are not gendered, the scenes can appear in a different order, and there are some random scenes which can be inserted anywhere in the play. This gives any director and company broad scope for creative input." [1]

Production history

Original production

The original production of Love and Information was performed by the Royal Court Theatre. It was directed by James Macdonald. The run time of this play was about an hour and 40 minutes. Macdonald's "energetic production supplies much in the way of context, anchoring each episode in a particular place and creating a kind of social kaleidoscope in the process." [2] In this production, Macdonald cast 16 actors to rotate around and play a large variety of characters throughout the play. The set was designed by Miriam Buether. She created a "clinical white-cube set, each piece [had] a slightly hallucinatory distinctness. [3] Kristin Tillotson of the Startribune writes: "Caryl Churchill's sound-bite exploration of the modern state of human connections and the ever-increasing onslaught of knowledge both useless and profound has something for everyone, especially those with short attention spans. ... [this play] reminds us that no matter how many sophisticated modes of communicating with other flawed humans that we can access, we'll still manage to misconstrue, misconvey, then kiss and make up, just like always." [4]

Other notable productions

Minneapolis-based Frank Theatre produced Love and Information January 30-February 22 of 2015. This production went on at the Ritz Theatre in Minneapolis, MN. The show was directed by Wendy Knox and featured Patrick Bailey, Virginia Burke, Joy Dolo, Kirby Bennett, Katherine Ferrand, Tessa Flynn, Emily Grodzik, Brianne Hill, Leif Jurgensen, Taous Khazem, Sam Pearson, Elohim Pena and Carl Schoenborn. [4]

Malthouse Theatre and Sydney Theatre Company co-produced an Australian production which opened in Melbourne in June 2015 and toured to Sydney in July 2015. The show was directed by Kip Williams and featured an ensemble cast of Ursula Yovich, Anita Hegh, Alison Whyte, Zahra Newman, Marco Chiappi, Glenn Hazeldine, Anthony Taufa, and Harry Greenwood. The acclaimed production received two Green Room Awards nominations, four Sydney Theatre Awards Nominations, and a nomination for Williams for the Helpmann Award for Best Direction of a Play.

Lyric Theatre (Hammersmith) produced Love and Information on the 9 and 10 of August 2016. The show was directed by Sherrill Gow and performed by the Lyric Young Company. [5]

Reception

Elin Diamond of Rutgers University lauded Churchill's text as "beautifully wrought". [6] Michael Billington of The Guardian awarded the Royal Court Theatre performance four out of five stars and argued that the playwright "is saying that we have to be [the master of technology] rather than its slave and learn how to live with the cascade of fact and opinion. [...] For me, Churchill suggests, with compassionate urgency, that our insatiable appetite for knowledge needs to be informed by our capacity for love." [7] Matthew Tucker of HuffPost UK wrote that the success of the performance is "only partly down to the succinct and thought-provoking script – director James Macdonald has taken a gift of a play, with dialogue that is open to huge interpretation, and has run with it." The critic stated that while some may consider it a gimmick, "the form of the play speaks volumes about the fast turnover of modern life – our jobs, our homes, relationships, media – a pervading sense of impermanence many people feel." [8]

Ben Brantley of The New York Times lauded Love and Information as a "thought-churning, deeply poignant new play", arguing, "As a whole, these parts compel us to think about the paradoxical variety and similarity in the ways we try to make sense of our universe and our place in it. And every little snippet of a play here leaves us wondering about what happened before and what happens after what we’ve seen." [9] Slant's Jason Fitzgerald wrote that Macdonald "turns a play that’s intellectually interesting but potentially tedious into a funny, vivacious, and often tender cornucopia of human experience." Fitzgerald said that the playwright "makes lyrical irony out of our inability to make sense of our universe". [10] Calling Churchill "not only one of the most radically inventive dramatists of the modern era but also one of the most trenchantly observant", Charles McNulty of Los Angeles Times said that "she appears to concur with her dramatic forebears from 21/2 millenniums ago that knowledge must be irradiated by emotion to become wisdom. Churchill lays bare the frenetic zeitgeist with surgical precision, but she allows mystery and poetry to hold sway." [11]

Jesse Green of Vulture wrote that some scenelets "are not developed enough to build much internal drama, and the sequencing of them builds none. [...] a few scenes are too smarty-pants to produce any direct satisfaction. Focusing on that, though, is to ignore the other kinds of pleasure and information the play is providing." Green said that "the writing remains ripe with the recognizable Churchillian qualities of wit and paradox, astringency and forgiveness." [12] Chris Jones of Chicago Tribune criticized director Shawn Douglass' production because "the individual scenes are mostly not specific and fully realized enough that you can believe they really are happening", but said that the play itself is "a terrific and important play". [13] John Del Signore of Gothamist praIsed the work for avoiding being heavy-handed: "Churchill [...] is not here to condemn our Information Age, but to understand how it's changed us". The critic stated, "A few of the shorter scenes have the disposable feel of cheap one-liners [...] But other short scenes are surprisingly affecting, and the overall tone is whimsical and sweet." [14]

Karen Fricker stated in Toronto Star that "it’s the brilliant specificity of Churchill’s observations and the clarity of her writing that linger long after the performance is over". [15] In 2018, Catherine Love of The Guardian noted the "diverse forms of Churchill's writing" despite giving the performance she had seen three out of five stars and comparing it unfavorably to the original performance directed by Macdonald. [11] Dmitry Samarov of Chicago Reader argued, "By employing a crazy-quilt approach to storytelling, Churchill ably evokes the mediated existence most of us are currently drowning in. It's a place where context is removed, meaning is only fleetingly visible, and distraction passes for hope." [6] Chicago's Malvika Jolly called the play "poignant". [7]

Some reviews were less favorable. Now 's Glenn Sumi wrote that "the play’s barrage of data becomes as overwhelming as the stuff on our screens, with only intermittent moments holding our interest. [...] There’s too much information in this play, and too little love." [16] J. Kelly Nestruck of The Globe and Mail stated that the play leaves one with that "uneasy, queasy feeling that you get after spending a similar amount of time on Facebook or Twitter." [17] John Nathan of The Jewish Chronicle admitted to "a nagging doubt that it would not have made it to the stage if it had not been written by the Royal Court’s most revered living writer", and stated that "sometimes the message is buried in banal exchanges — so deeply it might as well not be there at all." [18]

Michael Lake of The Coast called it a beautiful mess and wrote, "At its best, Love and Information feels like getting tiny glimpses into huge worlds. When it achieves this, we feel the weight of many small moments strung together, and the promise that it might all add up to something. We see friends, lovers, parents, children, strangers, all trying hard to connect, or to say something to one another. At its worst, it feels like a constant scrolling through your newsfeed and seeing something catch your eye but not stopping to find out what it is." [19] In The Telegraph, Charles Spencer dubbed Love and Information "the dramatic equivalent of going through countless emails, some interesting, some touching, some funny, some alarming, and many downright dull. A bewildering sense of information overload sets in and on my return from the theatre I realised that probably only half a dozen of the many scenes had lodged themselves firmly in my memory. So I read the play and once again a good deal of it still failed to linger in my mind." He argued, of the vignette in which a woman confides to a young boy that she is his mother, that Churchill insufficiently explores the emotional consequences. [20]

General references

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sarah Kane</span> English playwright (1971–1999)

Sarah Kane was an English playwright, screenwriter and theatre director. She is known for her plays that deal with themes of redemptive love, sexual desire, pain, torture—both physical and psychological—and death. They are characterised by a poetic intensity, pared-down language, exploration of theatrical form and, in her earlier work, the use of extreme and violent stage action.

<i>Top Girls</i> 1982 play written by Caryl Churchill

Top Girls is a 1982 play by Caryl Churchill. It centres on Marlene, a career-driven woman who is heavily invested in women's success in business. The play examines the roles available to women in old society, and what it means or takes for a woman to succeed. It also dwells heavily on the cost of ambition and the influence of Thatcherite politics on feminism.

A Number is a 2002 English play by Caryl Churchill. The story, set in the near future, is structured around the conflict between a father (Salter) and his sons – two of whom are clones of the first one. The play addresses the subject of human cloning and identity, especially nature versus nurture. Many critics over the years have lauded A Number, arguing Churchill created a work of significant intellectual depth with effective economy of style.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Royal Court Theatre</span> Theatre in London, England

The Royal Court Theatre, at different times known as the Court Theatre, the New Chelsea Theatre, and the Belgravia Theatre, is a non-commercial West End theatre in Sloane Square, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England. In 1956 it was acquired by and remains the home of the English Stage Company, which is known for its contributions to contemporary theatre and won the Europe Prize Theatrical Realities in 1999.

Far Away is a 2000 play by British playwright Caryl Churchill. It has four characters, Harper, Young Joan, Joan, and Todd, and is based on the premise of a world in which everything in nature is at war. It is published by Nick Hern Books. While some critics have expressed reservations about the play's ending, many regard Far Away as one of Churchill's finest plays.

Maxwell Robert Guthrie Stewart "Max" Stafford-Clark is a British theatre director.

Mad Forest: A Play from Romania is a play by English playwright Caryl Churchill. The three acts occur, respectively, shortly before, during, and shortly after the Romanian Revolution of 1989. The play is mostly written in English, but has several passages in Romanian, including having the cast sing Romania's national anthem, "Deşteaptă-te, române!".

Drunk Enough to Say I Love You? is a 2006 political play with eight scenes by Caryl Churchill. It addresses the application of power by the United States mostly since the Vietnam war. Critics' responses to the play are divided.

The Skriker is a 1994 play by Caryl Churchill that tells the story of an ancient fairy who, during the course of the play, transforms into a plethora of objects and people as it pursues Lily and Josie, two teenage mothers whom it befriends, manipulates, seduces and entraps. Whilst speaking English in its human incarnations, the Skriker’s own language consists of broken and fragmented word play. Blending naturalism, horror and magical realism, it is a story of love, loss and revenge. As with Churchill's A Mouthful of Birds (1986), the play explores the themes of post-natal psychosis and possession.

Seven Other Children is a 2009 play by Richard Stirling.

Blue Heart is two one act plays, written by Caryl Churchill and copyrighted in 1997. The first play, Heart’s Desire, is about a family waiting on the arrival of their daughter Suzy. The second play Blue Kettle, is about a man named Derek who goes around telling women they're his mother because he was adopted at birth. The women believe him and truly find ways to tell him the way he is their son. Blue Heart is highly regarded by critics.

Seven Jewish Children: A Play for Gaza is a six-page, 10-minute play by British playwright Caryl Churchill, written in response to the 2008-2009 Israel military strike on Gaza, and first performed at London's Royal Court Theatre on 6 February 2009. Churchill, a patron of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, has said that anyone wishing to produce it may do so gratis, so long as they hold a collection for the people of Gaza at the end.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Caryl Churchill</span> British playwright (born 1938)

Caryl Lesley Churchill is a British playwright known for dramatising the abuses of power, for her use of non-naturalistic techniques, and for her exploration of sexual politics and feminist themes. Celebrated for works such as Cloud 9 (1979), Top Girls (1982), Serious Money (1987), Blue Heart (1997), Far Away (2000), and A Number (2002), she has been described as "one of Britain's greatest poets and innovators for the contemporary stage". In a 2011 dramatists' poll by The Village Voice, five out of the 20 polled writers listed Churchill as the greatest living playwright.

Jennifer Haley is an American playwright. She grew up in San Antonio, Texas and studied acting at the University of Texas at Austin for her undergraduate degree. Haley also received a MFA in playwriting at Brown University in 2005, where she worked under American playwright and professor, Paula Vogel. Now living in Los Angeles, Haley is pursuing a career in theatre, film and television.

James Macdonald is a British theatre and film director who is best known for his work with contemporary writers such as Caryl Churchill. He was associate and deputy director of the Royal Court Theatre from 1992 to 2006. There he staged the premiere of Sarah Kane's Blasted (1995), her highly controversial debut which sparked a Newsnight debate on BBC Television. He also directed the premiere of Kane's Cleansed (1998) and 4.48 Psychosis which opened after her suicide.

Owners is a 1972 play by British playwright Caryl Churchill. It was first performed at the Royal Court Theatre's Theatre Upstairs in a production directed by Nicholas Wright. The play is a satire of property rights about real estate and of the people who own real estate and those who live in rented accommodation.

Light Shining in Buckinghamshire is a play by British playwright Caryl Churchill written in 1976.

Fen is a 1983 play by Caryl Churchill. While not as well known as Churchill works like Cloud 9 (1979) and Top Girls (1982), it has been praised by many critics.

Here We Go is a 2015 play by Caryl Churchill. Critics' reviews were generally positive.

Glass. Kill. Bluebeard. Imp. is a 2019 series of plays by British playwright Caryl Churchill that were premiered together.

References

  1. ↑ "Love and Information | Socialist Review". Socialist Review. Retrieved 19 April 2016.
  2. ↑ Tripney, Natasha (15 September 2012). "Love and Information". The Stage.
  3. ↑ Taylor, Paul (18 September 2012). "Love and Information Royal Court, London ****". The Independent.
  4. 1 2 Tillotson, Kristin (3 February 2015). ""Love and Information": snapshots of modern communication". Startribune.
  5. ↑ "Sherrill Gow".
  6. 1 2 Diamond, Elin (19 November 2014). "Love and Information by Caryl Churchill (review)". Theatre Journal. 66 (3): 462–465. doi:10.1353/tj.2014.0079. ISSN   1086-332X. S2CID   190352062.
  7. 1 2 Billington, Michael (14 September 2012). "Love and Information – review". The Guardian. Retrieved 3 June 2020.
  8. ↑ Tucker, Matthew (17 September 2012). "Love And Information (REVIEW): Caryl Churchill 's Punchy Postcards Of British Life". consent.yahoo.com. Retrieved 3 June 2020.
  9. ↑ Brantley, Ben (6 April 2014). "57 Bits of Emotional Knowledge". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 3 June 2020.
  10. ↑ Fitzgerald, Jason (9 February 2014). "Review: Caryl Churchill's Love and Information at New York Theatre Workshop". Slant Magazine. Retrieved 7 June 2020.
  11. 1 2 "Review: A big 'like' for Caryl Churchill's 'Love and Information'". Los Angeles Times. 20 July 2015. Retrieved 3 June 2020.
  12. ↑ Green, Jesse (14 February 2014). "Theater Review: Caryl Churchill and the Thin Line Between Love and Hate". Vulture. Retrieved 4 June 2020.
  13. ↑ Jones, Chris (16 October 2015). "'Love and Information': Tough to build a relationship between 57 scenes". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 3 June 2020.
  14. ↑ Del Signore, John (8 March 2014). "Theater Review: Caryl Churchill's Love And Information". Gothamist. Archived from the original on 3 June 2020. Retrieved 3 June 2020.
  15. ↑ Fricker, Karen (16 April 2018). "In Caryl Churchill's Love and Information it's the clarity of the writing that lingers". Toronto Star. Retrieved 3 June 2020.
  16. ↑ Sumi, Glenn (16 April 2018). "Love And Information could use more love, less information". NOW Magazine. Retrieved 4 June 2020.
  17. ↑ Nestruck, J. Kelly (17 April 2018). "Review: Love and Information is a jam-packed play you'll struggle to remember". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 4 June 2020.
  18. ↑ Nathan, John (20 September 2012). "Review: Love and Information - Caryl Churchill offends again, but only against theatre convention". The Jewish Chronicle. Retrieved 4 June 2020.
  19. ↑ Lake, Michael (10 October 2019). "Review: Love and Information don't mix". The Coast Halifax. Retrieved 3 June 2020.
  20. ↑ Spencer, Charles (17 September 2012). "Love and Information, Royal Court Theatre, review". The Telegraph. ISSN   0307-1235 . Retrieved 4 June 2020.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.