Photo by Jon Green
Directed by Rachael Woodward, What’s Love Got To Do With It? is billed as ‘a fast-paced, satirical exploration of love and loss – perfect for any relationship status’. This devised work instantly showcases the slick, contemporary vibe that indie production house The Cutting Room Floor is aiming for, and the biggest complaint from this critic is that at 45 minutes, the work was not given enough space to fully explore its theme. There is more to this story.
Five board members of a large pharmaceutical company, largely nameless hyper-personalities covering a remarkable number of alternative facets of the human spectrum, are about to let a new drug loose on the world, to cure it of the frivolity and heartbreak of love. But first, one last test.
Reminiscent of theatre heavyweights The 39 Steps and Book of Mormon, What’s Love Got To Do With It? is so peppered with quick and nippy wit that it was clinically cold (to good purpose) at times.
The actors are tight, like a band that has been together for years and can read each others’ every movement. The staging and direction is cleverly simple, although an over-reliance on one prop, initially stunningly effective, somewhat drained its power, but the beauty remained.
The space within the Blue Room forces designers to be smart with what is available, and Olivia Tartaglia’s set and costuming is perfect in that it suits the characters, the script’s modernity and the stark world in which the play was set – which weirdly is not easy to do, especially in costuming, as an audience is so easily distracted.
Jacinta Larcombe as Emily, and Zoe Hollyoak as Board Member Number 1, were particularly compelling to watch. Hollyoak shouldered numerous personalities and their traits with grace and humour. Larcombe’s Emily was infused with what seemed like perfectly natural inflections, though it would have been nice to see her character further developed; she could have been so much more than a mysterious apparition in the corner.
When you have 45 minutes, six actors and many more characters, there is a danger that some will be underused, but the cast’s calibre was strong – which made the work’s brevity all the more unfortunate.
In the (almost) four years since the company’s conception, The Cutting Room Floor have tackled a whopping 60 shows and three national tours. For a young company and team, their work and ethics are astoundingly strong, and the excitement they generate is almost contagious. However, one can’t help but wonder at the extra magic that might be possible if brakes were applied and themes were allowed to wallow and develop. The obvious questions were asked in this perfect example of battle between heart (ethics) and head (money) but not so much tackled, as there was no time left for a moment’s contemplation.
A full length play would have been nice to see, as the subject matter is highly relevant, the players more than competent, and all the proverbial correct ducks are in a row, but in 45 minutes there were too many questions and not enough hard substance.
What’s Love Got To Do With It? Is the theatrical equivelant of Coco Chanel’s famous mantra, ‘Before you leave the house take one thing off’. Everything works, but sometimes less (and longer) is more.
4 stars out of 5
What’s Love Got To Do With It?
Director: Rachael Woodward
Producer: Zoe Hollyoak
Lighting Designer: Scott McArdle
Sound Designer: Shaun Pickett
Set Designer: Olivia Tartaglia
Devisers & Performers: Jacinta Larcombe, Tristan Balz, Mariah O’Dea, Tristan McInnes, Phoebe Sullivan, Zoe Hollyoak
The Blue Room Theatre, Northbridge
7 – 25 June 2016
