When I was offered tickets to Love Letters by A.R. Gurney on Broadway, I honestly didn’t know what to do. Which rotating cast would I choose? It was an abundance of riches: Carol Burnett, Mia Farrow, Candice Bergen, Brian Dennehy, Alan Alda, Anjelica Huston, Martin Sheen, Stacy Keach and Diana Rigg. They are all masters in their own right and it would be an honor to see any of them perform on stage.
I ended up choosing Candice Bergen and Alan Alda. She plays Melissa Gardiner, he plays Andrew Makepeace Ladd III. The pair just extended their current run until December 18th at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre. My guess is they are having a pretty magical time and like performing with each others, because that is what came across to me as an audience member.
The play is as simple as it gets. Two people sitting on stage in chairs at a table, reading from the script. There is nothing else on stage to facilitate the dialogue. They are dressed in everyday clothes. It’s just the actors, the play wright’s words and the audience. For the first 30 minutes of listening to the story about two people who met age at age seven, it’s lovely. We hear about the life growing up with money, without money, going to private school, working hard to get good grades in high school, about life in college (he goes to Yale), about their love for writing and their affection for each other. At first it is banter, as they go back and forth, reading letter after letter to one another, telling stories, trying to meet up with each other, wondering what they would be like as a couple but marrying others.
But the tears start coming…..from Candice Bergen….as we hear about her character’s marital problems, struggle with depression, growing distance from her children. We listen to her pine for Alda’s character and never give up on him, even after he becomes a successful lawyer in NYC, run for office and appear to be happily married. As for Alda we wait for him to acknowledge her as the greatest love of his life and when it happens, it’s one of those rare Broadway moments you want to never forget.
This is real life played out on stage, and the two actors have a chemistry that makes it all seem very real. They, themselves, have known each other for 50 or 60 years and their real life relationship translates into something quite magical on stage.
A set, costumes, elaborate Broadway effects….none of that is needed. The result is moving, tearful and quite magnificent.
Tickets to Love Letters are available here.
Disclosure: I received tickets to Love Letters to facilitate this review.
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