Event

Love Letters

The play centers on just two characters, Melissa Gardner and Andrew Makepeace Ladd III. Using the epistolary form sometimes found in novels, they sit side by side at tables and read the notes, letters and cards - in which over nearly 50 years, they discuss their hopes and ambitions, dreams and disappointments, victories and defeats - that have passed between them throughout their separated lives.

In this account of two charter members of the privileged ultimate WASP set, we see Andrew and Melissa over a period of 50 years, as the author carries them from second grade through the trauma of adulthood, marriage, divorce and middle age. Andy is already stuffy at the age of 7 and sometimes insufferable when he becomes a United States Senator, and Melissa is an undisciplined and unhappy woman all of her life. As Melissa observes late in the play, it is astonishing that the two of them could have come from such similar backgrounds yet turn out to be so radically different. The two characters connect. As one actor reads, the other reacts, communicating beneath the words. As opposites, each provides the other with what is needed. The irony is that they do not understand this until late in life. These are, in fact, star-crossed love letters. The play concludes on a poignant note, as we realize that the letters - the root of their lifelong relationship - are actually the instrument that keeps them apart.