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In Love's Bright Coils
Ostensibly an exploration of courtship and the written word, this new ensemble-devised piece finds some touching moments but suffers from an absence of focus. The nine-member cast stages vignettes about lovers’ communiqués, from the early days of America to text messages and e-mail. What’s lacking is a thesis or narrative arc.
After an overlong, abstract introductory sequence suggests a dangerous self-seriousness, the error proves the opposite: The cast is too quick to indulge its goofball tendencies. The varied texts are drawn both from history—epistolary communications between Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, for instance—and the ensemble’s apparently limited imaginations. (Perhaps the passive-aggressive LiveJournal entries describing one nascent teenage relationship are true to life, but they don’t feel so.)
We’re guided through the scenes, Jiminy Cricket–style, by a black-clad male dancer who occasionally serves a clever purpose—functioning as a human anchor for a woman who changes her Facebook status to “in a relationship” is one shining example—but too often mugs distractingly. The entire cast is challenged by the unforgiving acoustics of the venue, a former funeral home in Logan Square. Above all, the shallow glimpses into romantic correspondence, whether handwritten or thumb-typed, don’t dig deep enough to even begin to address the declared inquiry into whether the way we communicate affects the way we love.
