Love Person at the Phoenix Theatre

I went to see this play at the Phoenix Theatre on Thursday night and I LOVED IT! LOVED IT! LOVED IT! I think that it gets Candy's highest rating!

I met my fellow theatre going friend Gretchen at Subway for dinner before the show and we rushed thinking we were very late. We gobbled up our subs and salads and rushed out to the Theatre. We were surprised when we arrived because we found a prime parking spot exactly in front of the Theatre doors. We thought that was odd, but congratulated ourselves on our good luck and rushed inside to discover that not only were we not late, but we were the first patrons to arrive. I guess neither of us as any ability to tell time as we were 30 minutes early.

We enjoyed spending that 30 minutes catching up and having a very fast moving and intense conversation. All of a sudden we looked up and the lobby was full of people and they began letting people in to the theatre. This theatre only has open seating so there is an advantage to arriving early to get the prime real estate. However, due to our ability to block out the outside world we were actually last in line to get our seats.

This was our second visit to the Phoenix Theatre and we discovered that they have two stages. One on the main floor that is traditional and one that is downstairs that is a big room and most of the patrons sit at round tables almost like a bar setting without all of the smoke. There were two rows of chairs lined up in the back of the room and that is where we chose to sit. AKA...we were the last one's in and there were no tables left. The chairs were the high bar stool variety so my feet didn't touch the ground and dangled throughout the evening.

So about the play. It was a love story between two couples. One was a lesbian couple and one of the characters used ASL (American Sign Language) to speak. When she and her partner were having conversations the entire room was quiet and you would read what they were saying on one of three screens located around the room. It was interesting to go through such periods of silence in a play, but it did keep my attention.

The second couple was in the stages of first meeting and first love and the male characters job was to read and translate poetry from Sanskrit to English. There were times when the actor was speaking in Sanskrit and the poem he was reading was projected upon the screen in Sanskrit. You didn't always know what the poems were about.

The love story portion had an interesting twist as the non speaking lesbian sister started emailing the other sisters (Vic) new boyfriend pretending to be Vic. It became very complicated and an interesting twist.

Go and see this play and you will not be disappointed.




About Love Person from their Website:

by Aditi Brennan Kapil
JANUARY 8 - 31, 2009 — The Frank & Katrina Basile Theatre
Love Person is a riveting and spirited love story about language as a portal and barrier to human connection in which love transcends sexual orientation, physical attraction, and social structure, and rests instead on the ways in which people communicate. It is performed in American Sign Language (ASL), Sanskrit, spoken English, and projected text for a multi-lingual experience.
Presented as a National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere with Mixed Blood Theatre (Minneapolis) and Marin Theatre Company (Mill Valley, CA)