Love Letters, a simple childhood correspondence turned into an impossible love affair, will be presented in six performances at The Beacon from Feb. 14-23. The play is directed by Thomas deVilliars, an Emmy-award winning daytime producer who now is retired and is the associate producer at The Beacon. Three couples will perform two shows apiece. They include Stephanie and Angus Hepburn, Kit Colburn and Jeff Battersby, and Christine Vittorini and Pat Manning.
Love Letters is a play by A. R. Gurney that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The play centers on two characters, Melissa Gardner and Andrew Makepeace Ladd III. Using the epistolary form sometimes found in novels, they sit side by side at tables and read the notes, letters and cards — in which over nearly 50 years, they discuss their hopes and ambitions, dreams and disappointments, victories and defeats — that have passed between them throughout their separated lives.
The play is described as a unique and imaginative theatre piece which, in the words of the author, “needs no theatre, no lengthy rehearsal, no special set, no memorization of lines, and no commitment from its two actors beyond the night of performance.” As the actors read the letters aloud, what is created is an evocative, touching, frequently funny but always telling pair of character studies in which what is implied is as revealing and meaningful as what is actually written down.
Performances are at 8 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays and 3 p.m. on Sundays. The Beacon is located at 445 Main St., Beacon. Call 845-226-8099 or visit thebeacontheatre.org.
