Dance to the music of time: Partners for life in a heartbreaking show about soul mates joined at the hip
True, lasting, love, is a rare and precious commodity. And as Shakespeare knew only too well: “The course of true love never did run smooth.”
But for those lucky enough to find it, (and brave enough, and tough enough to have the guts, heart and commitment to go the distance no matter what), the rewards are incomparable with anything else life may have to offer.
And it is those rewards - and, ultimately the heartbreaking price that eventually must be paid for such a strong emotional investment when one partner faces death, and the other the prospect of going on without them - that is the focus of Abi Morgan’s moving, and compelling, portrait of a marriage here.
Morgan’s star is in the ascendency at the moment, having written Oscar nominated Thatcher bio-pic The Iron Lady, as well as Steve McQueen sex addiction flick, Shame, and the TV adaptation of Sebastian Faulks’ novel, Birdsong.
Lovesong, which is presented here by the much lauded physical theatre company Frantic Assembly, and stars sprightly 78 year-old veteran thesp Sian Phillips, arrives in Glasgow on a national tour, trailing rave reviews, and warnings that tears may be flowing by play’s end.
While it didn’t succeed in moving me to tears, it’s still a very accomplished, meditative piece, that can’t fail to move you. One enhanced by the direction of Scott Graham, and choreography by Steven Hoggett, who worked on the movement for Black Watch, in which past and present are forever colliding to form a convincing whole.
A dance to the music of time, the play showcases the life of a couple Margaret and William (or “Maggie” and “Billy” as they affectionately grow to know one another over the passing of time in that familiar shorthand couples use) by a quartet of actors, who appear on stage at different times of their marriage, often simultaneously: both as newlyweds, and as en elderly couple 40 years of marriage later, with the clock ticking nearing the end, as Maggie faces up to terminal illness.
When Billy utters the words “without you” near the end of rant about how he will live out his days when Maggie is gone, you could have heard a pin drop
Leanne Rowe and Edward Bennett play the young newlyweds, dreaming of having kids that never come along, and coping with the temptations, jealousies, stresses and arguments that every couple go through- and those strong enough get through as they set about making a lasting life together.
Sam Cox and Sian Phillips recreate the twilight years with a quiet, tender warmth. All four actors provide moments to savour, not least when the different couples seamlessly interweave (Phillips involved in a balletic embrace with Bennett; the passing of one object across time evoking different memories).
It’s elegiac stuff, with the use of William Galloway’s projected images – a wedding band here; post it notes left by Maggie to keep Billy right when she’s gone turning into starlings – and a subtle underpinning score, adding to the atmosphere.
What the play so tenderly succeeds in showing is that we should all be so lucky as to find that special someone we truly love, and to find that love returned in kind across the years. And that when we do, to cling on to it for dear life, even in the face of death.
Lovesong, Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, until sat Feb 11. Tel: 0141 429 0022.
