Theatre review: Love, Old Fitz Theatre

To view Patricia Cornelius’ Love, you must enter a side street in Woolloomooloo near Kings Cross and access the Old Fitz Theatre via a vintage hotel, built around 1860. The theatre seats about 56. The worn, black-padded bench seats have names of donors scrawled on the floor underfoot.

The stage setting is sparse and features an elevated platform and double mattress covered with a grey sheet that’s surrounded by solid black walls and spotlights diffused with ambient mist. It is in this setting we meet the three characters Tanya (Georgia-Paige Theodos), Annie (Izzy Williams) and Lorenzo (Rhys Johnson). We are led into their conflicted, obsessive, violent and drug-dependent lives for the next 80 minutes. 

There are no breaks or intermissions. The performances by all three actors are superb and delivered with vulnerability, strength and intensity.

The characters demonstrate a twisted complexity. Abusive, controlling and dependent on each other, they are willing to brandish the word ‘love’ around to achieve survival, avoid loneliness and to get their next fix. 

Annie and Tanya experienced significant sexual abuse as children and there are times in the production that sexual and violent acts are simulated. 

Abused from the age of nine, Annie needs to feel ‘loved’ and this vulnerability is manipulated by her two ‘lovers’, Tayna and Lorenzo.  

Annie provides income support for the trio by prostitution. Her clothes are on again and off again during the performance; however, there is no full nudity during the production. 

While the actors are exceptional, and Johnson looks the part, the costumes of all three are a little too clean and well-kept and this does undermine the authenticity to a degree. 

There is no strong narrative structure as far as a plot goes. It is the characters dealing with each other, taking steps to satisfy their addiction and verbalising ideals about ‘love’.

It’s hard to identify any genuine moment that is indicative of intimate heartfelt ‘love’ during the play, even though its presence is declared by the three characters throughout. There is, however, one breathtaking moment of tenderness between Lorenzo and Tanya that is quickly shut down. 

Love won Cornelius an AWGlE for Best Stage Play 2006 and the Wal Cherry Award for best Australian play in 2003. The dialogue is extraordinary and, be warned, features loads of profanity. Lorenzo provides some cracking lines that are unexpectedly humorous, philosophical and perceptive. 

Overall, the dialogue and the production are fast-paced and verbose. It feels as if there is hardly a pause or even a slowing down before the next line or scene is delivered, which serves to distance the audience. 

There is a lack of clarity in parts of the production, with more than a little ambiguity regarding what the characters are saying or doing, particularly in relation to Annie’s monologues, and during the closing scenes between Annie and Tanya.  

When this reviewer attended, the theatre became more humid as the evening wore on, and it was hard to breathe. Accordingly, the production felt more intense. Those in the audience did not get a break from the production’s intensity and neither did the characters from their suffocating relationships, trapped in their own isolated, obscure and dependent worlds.

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When dealing with subject matter like this, there is a danger of creating a sense of salacious voyeurism and a ‘looking down one’s nose’ at victims of addiction, violence and sexual abuse. While this production limits the possibilities of building empathy with the characters, it doesn’t fall into the trap of being condescending to them or a case of ‘the privileged depicting the underprivileged’. 

It is not a feel-good production, and it is not intended to be one. 

Love by Patricia Cornelius
Old Fitz Theatre
Director: Megan Sampson
Producing Company: New Ghosts Theatre Company
Producer: Izzy Williams
Stage Manager: Dylan Ford 
Lighting Designer: Izzy Morrissey
Costume Designer: Rita Naidu
Composer and Sound Designer: Otto Zagala
Intimacy Coordinator: Shondelle Pratt 
Assistant Producer: Helenna Barone-Peters
Assistant Stage Manager and HMUA: Georgia Da Silva
Production Assistant: Megan Robinson 
Assistant Costume Designer and Props: Adriana Borsey
Photographer: Patrick Phillips
Cast: Rhys Johnson, Georgia-Paige Theodos, Izzy Williams

Love will be performed until 21 March 2025.