LOVE SONG

OK so today I confirmed my role as a hopeless romantic... Andy, Samantha (his friend and very talented director) and I went to watch this play at Steppenwolf, and while I was just bowled over by the powerful script, the other two were immediately analysing the flaws of the movements ("the trapdoor didn't do anything"), the set ("too large") and the lighting ("I was hoping they could do more") *grin*.

John Kolvenback's Love Song is about the beautiful contagiousness of love (certainly something we've been seeing this spring!!) Beane, a young man who lives alone, is invisible to his career-focused sister (Joan) and her cynical husband (Harry). His life is a shrinking, darkening world... until Molly appears. She holds Beane up, literally and emotionally, and suddenly his world is transformed: the sandwich he eats is "unbelievable", the air he breathes is sweetened by "a floating scent".

The story takes a sad twist when we discover the male lead is actually a neurotic and that Molly, the love of his life, is actually a figment of his imagination. Nevertheless, his experience has had a positive effect on his sister, who learns to throw caution to the wind, and free her imaginations to rekindle her dying romance with her husband.

In the middle of the play the 2 lovebirds embark on this incredibly cloying and semi-erotic spiel about how it feels to be in love, and what struck me was how the girl mentioned, "You know what's funny? I don't even think this is gross!" And that made me think, therein lies the immortality of love songs! When you're in love all the cheesiest lyrics make sense, the sappiest declarations, the craziest claims; and I totally found myself identifying with that.

Imagine love in which you enter a phase where you're so head-over-heels for that somebody that nobody else's opinion matters. You're too wrapped up in your own little world to care. You're happiest when you're together, so happy you feel compelled to do outrageous things; and when you're apart all you can think about is the other person.

Dangerous, in so many ways, but incredibly romantic :)

A note from the artistic director that I thought summed it up very nicely:
"Love is the currency of the power of mind over circumstance: when we love, we change. And are changed. And change others... Love songs create a floating scent, spin us into an imagining... Interrogate that, check the reality of that. But trust that."

Can't Help Falling In Love
- Elvis Presley

Wise men say only fools rush in
But I cant help falling in love with you
Shall I stay
Would it be a sin
If I cant help falling in love with you

Like a river flows surely to the sea
Darling so it goes
Some things are meant to be
Take my hand, take my whole life too
For I cant help falling in love with you

Like a river flows surely to the sea
Darling so it goes
Some things are meant to be
Take my hand, take my whole life too
For I cant help falling in love with you
For I cant help falling in love with you