Can a bare-bones Off-Broadway show, which features only two characters, a table and two chairs, no scenery, no costumes, and no action, make it on The Great White Way? Add to these limitations the fact that the actors are reading their lines from looseleaf notebooks, and they never make direct eye contact. Doesn’t sound promising, but this production of Love Letters keeps the interest of the audience throughout, and with Brian Dennehy and Mia Farrow as the authors of the title missives, no other cast is needed to fill the stage.
Since its New York debut in 1989, the play has been produced around the world, by both professional and community theater groups. The premise is deceptively simple; Andy and Melissa meet in the second grade and carry on a dance of affection and disdain though writing letters to each other throughout their lives. They are, by turns, smitten with each other, ticked off, miserable, ecstatic, and in desperate need of one another. Life never goes as planned, even with these WASP children of privilege, who receive the most exclusive education in tony but lonely private schools, and the best of everything the family money can buy. Andy loves to write but is herded into a political career; he’s shattered by a romance which can’t be allowed to survive in his social set, and a marriage that never quite jells. The increasingly fragile Melissa doesn’t like to write, or often even to read the notes she and Andy exchange. She endures an alcoholic mother, who is either nurturing or irresponsible, depending on the needs of the day, and her mood. Mom’s marriages, including one to a despicable letch, come and go; and so, ultimately, do Melissa’s.
Down through the years, Andy and Melissa turn to each other to share their dreams, disappointments, and strong feelings for each other. Dennehy is, by turns, boyish, resigned, stolid, and in his own way, very appealing. Farrow is nothing short of luminescent. She has the rare gift of making everyone in the audience love her, seemingly without trying. Director Gregory Mosher, freed from the task of blocking, has concentrated his considerable talent on guiding his actors to flawless performances.
The ending is rather ambiguous; what actually happened depends more on the perception of members of the audience than what’s written on the pages of those onstage notebooks. But by then, we’re so engrossed in Andy and Melissa’s journey, we feel we can read what’s in their hearts, with or without the notebooks.
