Now I’m sorry to disappoint those of you waiting for my worst productions piece, but since it’s close to St Valentine’s Day how about a look at plays about love?
Since love is an emotion that everyone’s experienced at some point (hard though that may be to believe in certain cases) there are many, many plays about it. But not that many good ones.
The trouble is, love – in other people – is rather boring. Don’t believe me? Well try spending an evening with a loved-up couple, and see how endearing you find them after the initial “ahh, isn’t that sweet?” phase has passed. The aptly-named Valentine, from The Two Gentlemen of Verona, spends a fair amount of the play rhapsodising about how wonderful it is to be in love, and as such is a crashing bore, as well as being one of Shakespere’s stupidest characters.
Even worse are the lovesick. Often sporting long Russian names, they will mooch about the stage, eulogising over the lady of the house and turning every conversation into a monologue concerning their inner torment. Now what effect is this going to have on the audience? Those happily in love, and those happily single will find this person staggeringly dull, while those unhappy in love will feel not comradeship, but intensely-magnified self-pity. Like all arts, theatre attracts its fair share of the lovelorn, the objects of their affections married or otherwise attached, or most crushing of all simply not interested in me. I mean them.
Romeo and Juliet is often cited as a great romantic play, generally by those who haven’t seen it. Any mention of it is guaranteed to engender two tiresome observations from the local bore, firstly that it’s “Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou”, not ‘where’, and secondly that Juliet is only 13 years old. Both delivered as if they’re the first person to ever notice this. And despite the latter the play hasn’t been cancelled. Yet.
So where can we find enjoyable stage love stories? Well, in musicals. But that’s a story for another time…
Happy Valentine’s Day!