THE POWER OF LOVE


reviews
 

excerpts from
time out
plays & players
the stage & television today
 
 

time out:

"Tender and Eugen, two barely grown-up thirtysomethings, obliterate their senses in Amsterdam while 'researching' for their screenplay.  Following his code 'It Doesn't Count on Tour', father-to-be Tender sleeps with beautiful publicist Willow, the upshot of which is an HIV infection...
Sebastian Michael's play 'about life on the edge of the century is stirring, prophetic stuff...insightful and moving... there's the explosive confrontation between Tender's wife, Jo, and Willow - Jo choking on her anger, Willow doggedly calm and philosophical; and the tragic, draining confession scene between the broken, childlike Tender and an earth-shattered yet formidable Jo (Juliet Moore).  Eugen (a gently camp Richard Stemp) is a self-confessed metaphor maniac... fallible yet admirable characters."
 
 

plays & players:

"...the Southwark Playhouse has picked up a pearl...  'The Power of Love' is about young people in the nineties grappling with sex, careers, drugs and AIDS, but it does not exhibit the soulless banality of so many plays with these themes.  This is 'Shopping and Fucking' with more humour and more heart...
the plot meanders and teases while always keeping an assured grip on the audience's attention: black comedy, tragedy, poetry, soap opera and philosophy jostle joyfully together...
'The Power of Love' draws authenticity from the strength of its characterisation... The friendship between the two main male characters, Tender and Eugen, is the engine that powers the play.  It is quirky but absolutely believable and, as an unashamedly emotional portrayal of male love...ventures into relatively unexplored theatrical territory."
 
 
 

the stage & television today:

"The play, shortlisted for a Verity Bargate award became ineligible with the opening of this fringe production.  But it reveals a playmaker with an assured grasp of theatrical mood, as his plot moves seamlessly from buddy bonding, through romantic comedy to gut-wrenching melo-drama, ending with Maupin-esqe touchy-feely charm in a back garden somewhere in London.
Richard Stemp makes an impressive London debut [sic] as Eugen, a man with the twin gifts of second sight and friendship, whose wit and calm presence give the production its dramatic continuity.  In particular his arias on the horrors of the EU and Beethoven's cruel deafness are superbly achieved.
Fine support comes from Gary Grant as an Arkansas juve and James Dillinger as a back-packer from Oz, whose finesse as a silent Dutch waiter also catches the eye."


 
 


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