The many facets of love

Savage/Love

Directed by Deborah Johnston

When the World Was Green (A Chef's Fable)

Directed by Diana Denley

Belvoir Street Theatre, Sydney

Until June 7

Review by Sue Boland

Two plays by Sam Shephard and Joseph Chaikin are being performed
together at the Belvoir Theatre.

The older of the two, Savage/Love, is a very intense one-person
play. Through the eyes of an old man (Christopher John Snow), Savage/Love
reflects the different facets of human love — the first meeting, the early
fantasies about the new lover, the yearning for approval, the need for
love, the desire to control, the fear of being discarded, the suspicion
and the jealousy.

In choosing a one-person format, the authors have shown how love is
constructed out of one person's perspective and needs. The play shows the
illusions people create when they want and are seeking love: how people
try to change themselves in order to secure love, and how they try to change
their lover to fit in with their own fantasies.

The audience is left with a lot of questions. Did the old man fantasise
the whole relationship? Did he kill his lover, or was that scene symbolic
of the death of the relationship? You are never quite sure whether the
set represents a room in a house or a prison cell.

There are disturbing scenes reflecting violent aspects of love — insecurity
and fear of being dumped for someone else, combined with the desire to
manipulate and have complete control over the other person. Although the
audience is never told whether the lover is a female or a male, the allusion
to violence and control leaves the audience convinced that the lover is
a woman.

Love is portrayed as being both the man's saviour and his downfall.

In what must have been a very difficult part, Snow carried off the performance
magnificently, capturing the character of the old man and the contradictions
of “love” perfectly.

The authors deliberately don't put the old man in any social context
in Savage/Love. The old man never hints at his name, he never refers
to his lover by name, we don't find out what work he does or did, or anything
else about his life

The play reflects how human relationships are distorted by capitalism.

When the World Was Green (A Chef's Fable), lacks the strengths
of Savage/Love. Although the acting was good (except for the unconvincing
southern US accent), it wasn't clear what the point of the play was.

The play was meant to explore the motivations of an old man (David Ritchie)
who was driven to kill his cousin by a centuries-old family vendetta and
the motivations of a woman looking for her long-absent father.

Because the man could not bring himself to carry out his destiny and
kill his cousin, he killed a complete stranger who looked like his cousin.

The woman enters the scene to interview and write a book about the man's
crime and his motives. Did she think this man might have been her father?

They appear to fulfil each other's needs for affection and to be needed
by someone. Again, the characters have no names.

The two plays are very interesting, but the more powerful of the two
is definitely Savage/Love.

From GLW issue 319