BWW Previews: LOVE at Marin Theatre Company

Written and performed in a time when hashtags such as #MeToo and #BelieveWomen exemplify the changing social dynamic, Kate Cortesi's new play, Love, examines the uncertainties beyond the slogans by drawing and redrawing the unsteady lines of power dynamics related to gender and consent. And now, in the time of Covid-19, Marin Theatre Company is offering a video of this performance streaming online.

"In 2017, as more and more #MeToo stories were coming to light ... I felt a certain brand of story was missing from the public dialogue," said Cortesi. "In private, my friends and I were obsessively chronicling a whole spectrum of experiences with men and women in the workplace and in the bedroom.... We were puzzling over pretty confusing scenarios."

In Love, Penelope (Clea Alsip) maintains a close friendship with her ex-lover (and former boss), Otis (R. Ward Duffy). She's disturbed when approached by a group of Otis's other ex-employees who are going public with allegations of sexual harassment in the workplace. Penelope's experience with Otis was consensual - even loving. She can't concede that Otis is predatory, but with both sides of the story coming out, questions arise about the legitimacy of her experiences and the veracity of the other women's claims.

This Marin Theatre Company production, directed by Mike Donahue, is the premier performance of Love. While the Covid pandemic closed the theaters two days after the production opened, a video of the production is available online through April 11.

"I think the #MeToo movement, if we do it right, is an invitation to examine all the ways we have internalized the belief that it's women's job to serve men," said Cortesi. "I'd love us to get rigorous about noticing how much a woman's path through life is affected by her appeal to the male sexual appetite. Is equality possible if everything we do gets filtered through the gaze of male desire? Can we be sex and a person? In my opinion, we've barely scratched the surface of that inquiry."

Get the video here: www.marintheatre.org/productions/love