If your life was a playlist of music, what would it feel like if there were “no love songs” to gladden your heart and warm your nights. Come sojourn to Scotland and enter the moment Lana frequents a tavern and sees the singer entertaining there, Jessie, who would soon color her world with sunshine and starlight.
The Terris Theatre in Chester welcomes you to share their days and nights together, in the poignant and often heartbreaking “No Love Songs" from an original idea by Kyle Falconer and Laura Wilde, with songs by Kyle Falconer, book by Laura Wilde and Johnny McKnight, with John McLarnon and Anna Russell-Martin. It will serenade you until Sunday, October 20. Be prepared to tune your ears to catch all the inflections of their lilting Scottish brogue.
When Anna Russell-Martin’s Lana encounters John McLarnon’s Jessie at a gay bar in Dundee, Scotland, the attraction is immediate and dynamic. She is attending college and he is striving to create a successful music career. After a rocket courtship and marriage, they welcome parenthood with open arms. In a series of songs like “Monsters,” “Still Here,” “Listen Lana,” “Don’t Call Me Baby” and “Wait Around,” we follow the exhilaration and excitement of a new son, quickly extinguished by the reality of the spiral of mounting responsibilities, from nappies and feedings, bouts of incessant crying, loneliness and feelings of inadequacy, Lana experiences being broken as Jessie departs on a month long tour to America to perform.
Their separation at this critical moment in their marriage sends Lana into a traumatic spin, what one in five women and one in ten men experience after the birth of a child: post-partum depression. With no one nearby to lean on, no husband, no mother, no friend or neighbor, Lana’s struggle to cope results in her despair when she fails. You cannot help but want to lessen Lana’s burden and encourage her to keep her faith and her love strong. Gavin Whitworth serves as conductor and keyboardist while Andrew Panton and Tashi Gore direct this soul searching and sensitive song fest.
For tickets ($25-59), call the Terris Theatre, 33 North Main Street, Chester at 860-873-8668 or online at goodspeed.org. Performances are Wednesday and Thursday at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 3 p.m. and 8 p.m and Sunday at 2 p.m.
Come witness this intensely personal story, inspired and emotionally invested intimate love story of Lana, Jessie and their new little man as they ultimately face the future with hope.
No comments:
Post a Comment