Review: LOVE AND INFORMATION At Main Street Theater: Too Much Information?

Written by award-winning playwright Caryl Churchill, LOVE AND INFORMATION breaks the mold of traditional theatre with fifty or more vignettes in lieu of the typical story arc of a play. The general theme focuses on interpersonal relationships and how we communicate. We see human interactions in a plethora of settings: two teenagers obsess about a heartthrob as they squeal over fan websites on a laptop, a man explains to his tattoo artist why he doesn't feel any pain, a woman tries to engage her distant husband, just to name a few. All of these mini scenes fly on the tails of each other in a lightening-fast ride. But is it a meaningful ride?

One of Churchill's gifts is in saying a lot with very little. There are moments in this play where silence speaks a thousand words or a couple of lines tell a much bigger story. This is great in a traditional style play with traditional pacing, but when you have actors dashing around, slipping into different characters at breakneck speed and trying to instill some truth into small moments it can be tiring and overwhelming.

Some of the scenes work to create an organic, authentic human experience. The real trick of this play for an actor is to connect deeply with a character and situation without being given a lot of information. An actor has to imbue each vignette with backstory to create a rich experience. Rebecca Bivens shows a gift for creating depth with very little material. Every time she is on stage, playing dozens of characters, she was able to breathe life and vulnerability into tiny scenes. Bivens is the real deal, whether portraying a woman who is desperate to connect to her husband, a friend who awkwardly shares information about a straying spouse, or a bored scientist getting a little groovy as she reads DNA coding. Greg Cote is especially sympathetic and endearing as a man who has a medical condition where he cannot feel pain. Cote is a likable, emotionally committed presence on stage and I enjoyed all of his scenes as well. There are many talented actors in the cast, but there are times when it's evident that the emotional digging hasn't gone very deep. Granted, if you are asked to simply sneeze in a teeny, tiny vignette, you don't necessarily have to do any subtext work, but there were many vignettes where I felt the acting was rather presentational and one dimensional. This makes it even harder to find a deeper meaning to the collective fragmentation of the show.

While the play could be challenging for an actor- the constant scene changes, character changes, blocking, blocking, and more blocking!- the cast does a good job of weaving around each other and keeping the momentum going. Credit goes to director Philip Hays for running a tight ship with very little wait time for the audience.

The play is better in concept than is manifested in reality. I was excited to see a show about human interactions and communication in the digital age. Splintered scenes? Sounds interesting! But ultimately LOVE AND INFORMATION is the emotional equivalent of clicking on a website and getting dozens of pop-up ads: slightly irritating, and ultimately not very meaningful.

LOVE AND INFORMATION plays at Main Street Theater from February 10 - March 5.

For tickets: http://www.mainstreettheater.com/mainstage/loveandinformation.html

Photo Credit: Pin Lim