A Review by Lin McNulty
“Love Letters,” the latest offering from The Actors Theater of Orcas Island at The Grange, is a Pulitzer-nominated play by A.R. Gurney, and it is the perfect antidote to the activity, heat, and bustle we may be experiencing during this Orcas Island summer.
When I graduated from high school, my best friend since fifth grade presented me with every note I had ever passed to her as we were growing up. What a wonderful gift it was. It is just such a sentiment I have now. Coming home from The Grange, I feel wistful, nostalgic, and gently melancholic for those days when letters were written in longhand, with a pen dipped into ink. There was no need to create backups onto an external disk; we would simply bundle them up with a ribbon and put them on a closet shelf in a shoebox.
D.D. Glaze and Fred Whitridge portray star-crossed Melissa and Andrew through letters, notes, and cards exchanged over a 50-year period, starting in second grade. Although this play is, by design, meant to be “read,” rather than actively performed, Glaze and Whitridge aptly meet this unique challenge, lending a touching depth to their characters as they share the events of their separate yet intertwined lives.
Gurney, the playwright, is known for his depictions of privileged WASP America, and it is said that “Love Letters” is his best ever. In grade school Melissa thinks Andrew is her friend because of her family money, yet it is Andrew who is destined for a successful career in the public sector.
Melissa rebels against Andrew’s love of letter writing, attempting to coax him into phone calls. Glaze aptly depicts this feistiness while Whitridge is the epitome of stalwartness as he pursues his love of letter writing, and his love of writing letters to Melissa in particular.
From boarding schools, colleges, Italy, Japan, and criss-crossing the U.S., this is a heartwarming, amusing, and poignant story, and the performance is a delightful way to spend an evening.
Love Letters continues at The Grange on Saturday, July 25, Friday July 31, Saturday August 1 and Sunday August 2, at 7:30 pm. Tickets are available in advance from Darvills Bookstore or at the door for $10.
Oh, and those notes from my friend? I should have backed them up.
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