LOVE LOVE LOVE AT PLYMOUTH’S DRUM THEATRE
Plymouth’s Drum Theatre is this month playing host to a very special play, Mike Bartlett’s Love, Love, Love, which is being premiered to Plymouth audiences and takes them on a journey with a young couple, who fall in love during the 1960s, and then spend the next forty years attempting to reconcile themselves to that emotion. 247 spoke to the play’s director, James Grieve, co- Artistic Director of Paines Plough, who told us why this story has meaning for all of us whether we were born in the swinging sixties or, perhaps more significantly, born to parents who were.
To start with the show’s title, what do you think the play tells us about love?
Well, in all his work, the writer Mike Bartlett is always concerned with generational interactions and this play allows him to look at the relationship between a very specific mind set of parents and their children. The 1960s was a very specific time for shaping its youth’s attitude towards a great many aspects of life. They challenged the boundaries and pushed for their own way of doing things. That made them a very unique generation . . . and this is very significant for their kids.
So the play has a relevance for today as many of the children born out of these sixties relationships are currently the ones making most of the big decisions in society today?
Exactly, I’m in my early thirties and the world that I live in is entirely different to that of my parents both now and when they were my age. By this time in his life, my father was married with kids and mortgage while I’m touring with this show and renting back home. This doesn’t seem a problem to me as the expectations are entirely different. In the same way, however, the world is very different.
The relationship between the parents and the children does seem to become quite adversarial at times.
Oh yes, the play is really focussed on setting up the show down that occurs in the third act. Mike is really considering here how far one generation has a responsibility towards the younger generation. It’s never been more relevant than it is today, actually, as were just a matter of days away from one of the biggest spending revues that his country has ever seen and the chances are it’s going to be harder than ever for the younger generation to find their feet financially.
So, despite all their alternative views the 60s generation seems to have made a better job of playing the system than their kids?
It does seem so . . . have you heard the term “the jilted generation”? That’s anyone born after September 1979 and, they are the first group to go through higher education with no grants or any other kind of support. As a result, they’ve come to experience a level of debt unlike any other generation – particularly their parents who preached about free love but found a few more practicalities fell into the lap as well – leaving the next generation with a legacy of debt that they can’t get out from underneath.
So while The Beatles may have told us that love “is all you need” this play asks its audience to consider that maybe lovers and families are connected by far more than that. It’s a roller coaster ride through some significant decades and, no matter which one you were born in, it will provide you with food for thought.
Love, Love, Love is running at the Drum Theatre from Thursday 7 to Saturday 23 October.
Words: Alan Butler
