Let’s talk about Love

Let’s talk about Love, director John Sheedy says as he begins to chat about his new play at Belvoir Street.

That is what this play, Love, is all about -“ love, in all its forms.

The simple title of the play Love, which opens this week, is something Sheedy has been playing with for a while, ever since the fateful day a few months back when he received a phone call from his agent.

She said to me this day, -˜I want you to do a play about love,’ he recalls. I got a little defensive about that comment and replied, -˜I do do plays about love -“ what are you talking about?’

That was when she said she was talking about Patricia Cornelius’s new play about love called Love. Once I read it, it floored me and I couldn’t put it down.

Love tells the story of a complicated love triangle between two women who become lovers in prison.

One of the women, Tanya, knows that Annie is the one for her, but, once on the outside, Annie meets Lorenzo, a shady figure who promises her all the darkness and danger she is also seeking.

Sheedy, who most recently directed Closer at NIDA and Some Explicit Polaroids at Darlinghurst Theatre, directs a trio of actors in the Love tale. Genevieve Hegney is Tanya, Belinda Scully is Annie and Rupert Reid is Lorenzo.

This play explores all the different kinds of love, Sheedy explains.

It looks at the love between two women, the love of a man for a woman, and the love of addiction. Putting all three of them into the one space at the same time tests to the limit which one will survive.

Tanya is a lesbian, Annie is not so sure. What this is about is the love these two women have for each other and the way the world judges that, particularly in the harsh world they are in.

Love plays 2-26 November at Belvoir Street Downstairs Theatre, Surry Hills. Bookings on 9699 3444 or at the Belvoir Street Theatre website.