MARK AUERBACH
HARTFORD – Probably the first question you’ll be asking…”
What about Ali MacGraw and Ryan O’Neal?”
Well, first off, she (at 76) and he (at 74) look terrific. Miss MacGraw, with some stage experience in a short-lived Broadway play called Festen, seems more comfortable on the stage than O’Neal, but he still has a presence, maybe because his swoon quotient in Barry Lyndon, Paper Moon, and TV’s Peyton Place illuminates The Bushnell.
Love Letters is a clever, well-devised play by Connecticut playwright A.R. Gurney, in which two characters recall their decades-long relationship by reading their correspondence (a lost art in the days of tweets, emails, and non-cursive penmanship). Melissa and Andrew come from well-to-do backgrounds, and they live lives of comfort, even though their circumstances are not always comfortable. Audiences will “get” the references to Hartford, New Haven, and Amherst–it’s familiar turf.
Ali McGraw and Ryan O’Neal in Love Letters at The Bushnell. (Photo by Austin Hargrave)
Love Letters is also a producer’s (and casting director’s) dream. Here at The Bushnell, it’s directed by Gregory Mosher, who staged the 2014 Broadway revival. Gurney wrote the original to co-star with HollandTaylor, and Love Letters, after premiering at New Haven’s Long Wharf Theatre, opened Off-Broadway with a rotating cast of stars. Love Letters requires no set, no costumes, just a table and two chairs. The actors read from scripts, so there’s not staging or choreographing per se. So, it’s easy to set up.
There have been many star-studded productions of Love Letters over the years. Larry Hagman and Linda Grey (JR and Sue Ellen Ewing from TV’s Dallas) toured the show, and so did Allan Young and Connie Hines from Mr. Ed. Eliizabeth Taylor and James Earl Jones starred in a one-night benefit for her AIDS Foundation in 2007. A local production in Springfield (2008) starred Brenda Garton and Tim Daggett, and then ABC40 co-anchors Dave Madsen and Kathy Tobin. (I saw the production with Dave and Kathy; she was particularly affecting).
As MacGraw and O’Neal worked their “stage magic”, the casting director in me day-dreamed about casting coups for future productions: Judge Judy and Justice Scalia in a law school benefit; Uzo Aduba and Lea Delaria in an Orange Is The New Black episode where the Danbury prison drama club puts on a show. or maybe Rosie O’Donnell and Tommy Tune in a Pride benefit.
The touring production seems a bit lost on the large Bushnell stage, and the sound needed to be kicked up a notch. From our vantage point in the 10th row, MacGraw and O’Neal were giving small performances, compared to the actors more accustomed to the theatre stage and large houses. And, if the stars seemed more comfortable playing the characters as they approached their 70s, it’s hard to forget that approximately twenty years ago, Carol Channing, at age 75, brought Hello, Dolly! to The Bushnell, and she sang, danced, and acted, so every nuance was seen in the last row of the upper balcony.
If you’re looking to celebrate Valentine’s Day weekend with a star-studded rendering of a love story, Love Letters at the Bushnell is for you. And, we’re lucky, because there’s a love story classic down the street with Hartford Stage’s Romeo and Juliet, and Streeisand love at Buyer and Cellar at TheaterWorks. Three theatres with three very different productions in one week in Hartford/Springfield. Now, that’s a love story.
The Bushnell presents “Love Letters” by A.R. Gurney. Directed by Gregory Mosher. Scenic and lighting design by Peter Kaczorowski. Costume design by Jane Greenwood. Sound design by Scott Lehrer. Cast: Ali MacGraw (Melissa Gardner), Ryan O’Neal (Andrew Makepeace Ladd III). Through February 14. The Bushnell, Hartford, CT. For tickets: 860-987-5900 or www.bushnell.org.
Mark G. Auerbach studied theatre at American University and the Yale School of Drama. He’s worked for arts organizations and reported on theatre for newspapers and radio.
