REVIEW: Strategic Love Play (Signature Theatre)
Signature’s known as a musical powerhouse, and their currently-running Play On is no exception. It’s bright, bubbly, and got a solid score in my review; it’s entirely worth checking out. Their second show of the season, playing in the adjacent Ark theatre, is a straight play. And Strategic Love Play, by British playwright Miriam Battye. epitomizes that you can’t win them all.
Book
I’ve been writing these reviews for a few years now, so searching for subtext within dramas feels pretty natural, even if I’m wildly misplaced in my takes. But I can’t help but feel like it’s not good when a show is so nonsensical and grating that you feel desperate to search for them. In Love Play, the search for meaning extends far beyond the interactions of “Man” and “Woman”; it lurches out into the audience like an unwelcome party invite, trapping you in your seat while you beg for something insightful—or even funny—to come out of it. Battye’s book follows semi-unnamed representatives of these two sexes as they meet for their first date, having met on Tinder. The woman is immediately awkward, embracing millennial cringe as if it were her lifelong friend; the man is stoic, plain, and somehow cranky. Though there are plays that can recover from early fumbles, things here progress so sloppily, so devoid of substance and intrigue, that my mind could not comprehend that this was really it. Is this a a metaphor? A crimson-red bar with bottles on flanked shelves cascading like flames, a woman with red hair, no music, and the hesitancy for the man to make physical contact? I began searching for more clues like that, especially as the few breadcrumbs of character are left for the audience to scramble over like hungry rats, and decided:
This must take place in Hell. The man has died, and this is some twisted metaphor for atonement, being on a “date” in what appears to be Hell.
But even in my wildest dreams, in which this play makes something of itself over 75 minutes, there are still so many things left unanswered. It’s never clear what either of them want. There are friends of great importance to the leads that are mentioned, even talked to, but never elaborated on. The playwright herself indicates that a key theme of this is the ironic solitude that is brought from being more connected then ever. This is never actually explored in the play, beyond texting friends in pauses and mentioning that they met on an app. There’s no exploration of the online human condition that results in any substance or mental snacks: just a little over an hour of the worst first date you’ve ever been on. 0/10
Acting
Two-handers like this need the central couple to have a spark. Some connection. Some desire. It feels like there was neither between Bligh Voth and Danny Gavigan, who showcase their individual skill in this production but fail to magnetize. They seemed distant both from the work and each other, fluctuating between enthusiasm to be involved and outright boredom. Both are fine emotions to pull off as a performer when the context is appropriate, but the weakness of the book creates an awkwardly unstable platform for the actors to coast on. 1/10
Production
It is highly uncharacteristic of Signature to produce shows with such bland staging as seen in Love Play. Even in some of their more minimalist, intimate works like Penelope a season or two (already????) ago, there’s an inherent energy, a soul that occupies the rafters and is augmented by the fever of the piece. In this case, a blindingly blood red nightclub-y bar is all we’re subjected to, with no change in the action. It doesn’t inform the environment any more than the paltry dialogue does, and it may have even been more effective to have just staged it in the black box. Or, at least have some music play faintly so that it doesn’t feel so lifeless for the entire 75 minutes. 0/10
Viz
The key art for this seems generic. (The pre-show staging is just any random modern bar with $17 cocktails.) For example, the proposal iconography with the Instagram “like” heart? Cool, but it took me forever to notice that it’s coming from a foldable smartphone and not a ring box. Not that the show makes any use of this techology in its execution or premise. 1/10
Verdict
Strategic Love Play is a confusing, empty play that imposes two half-baked lovers with nothing in common with either each other, or the audience. 2/40
