Love and Information at the Crucible Studio Sheffield Review

Reviewed by Jenny Seymour

Be aware, this production is 1 hour 45 minutes long and doesn’t have an interval, so you won’t be admitted if you arrive late.

In the brief description of this production online, it is difficult to determine in advance exactly what you are going to see. There are a few photo stills and a video to whet your appetite, but this is certainly a production you need to see for yourself.

All we are told in advance is that this is a “shatteringly inventive snapshot of modern life, love and finding the answer” and all I think the conclusion is, is that perhaps there is no answer! Every single audience member will come out of the production remembering different edited highlights of the 100 characters they have seen in just over 1 hour and 45 minutes.

The programme cover does give you a slight clue, as it shows the lights on in an apartment block. Who knows what is going on behind each of those closed doors and lit windows?

Set design, costume design, music and lighting play such a key part in this play because each character/encounter is on stage for such a short space of time – in some instances just seconds, so it is often down to the costumes and set to help describe the encounter and leave the lasting memory. This is done fabulously. The use of lighting and the division of the stage into blocks allows your eye to follow each character and each encounter. I loved the two priests near the beginning – will we ever find out their secret?

It would be impossible for any audience member to remember every encounter that takes place in this fast-paced play, but I believe everyone will come away with some key encounters that were poignant for them. The encounters between characters played by Ian Redford and Marian Mcloughlin were for me some of the more poignant encounters and some which touched me the most – the long-lost couple reunited after many years apart meeting for the first time in years and recounting some of their most fond memories together, but what soon became clear is that they both remembered their time together with different moments in time. You then think of all of your memories, relationships, friendships – we all know that we love our partners and best friends and that they love us, but how we develop and grow that love by what we recall of that friendship could be wildly different.

All actors played their parts incredibly well and Debbie Chazen’s rendition of Black Hole Sun with Sule Rimi accompanying her on the piano was stunning. However, some of the encounters make more of an impact than others.

The play examines the huge amount, level and type of information we are given and what we can do to process it. The poor man who worries that he doesn’t know everything and is talked away (we hope) from ending his life by a woman who convinces him that it is ok not to know everything and you can’t possibly expect to know everything. This type of overload leading to stress is of course commonplace in our society.

It also examines science and fact, how we recollect facts and improve our memories – there was one scene where two men use the rooms in a house to recall lists and I may even try that myself when I next need to remember my shopping list! It also examines in part, the loss of memory, dementia and what it is that triggers happiness with the use of music.

Many of the scenes are funny – the waiter who is shocked by how many languages in which the cleaner can say “table”, but to him it is just a table! The evangelical preacher who preaches about frightening a child, but then gets embarrassed by the fact his microphone continues when he isn’t speaking, but with the whole congregation oblivious to this – they simply wanted a preacher to believe in – it didn’t matter who that person was or even what he was saying!?

I really liked the scene where each character has their own puppet to show them as children (we need to protect our children, what is pain?) vs adults, with them being centred around a piano very cleverly labelled as “the safe place”.

I don’t want to give too much away, so that you can each witness each encounter fresh as you see it. However, what I think the playwright is trying to show us is that we now live in a society where we have to be careful that information overload doesn’t detract from or replace human connection, emotional feeling and most of all – love!

In such a fast-paced production, every audience member will take a different edited highlight of “Love and Information” – go to see it and find out for yourself!

Rating: 4/5

Tickets cost £19 (booking fees may apply)

Love and Information is at the Crucible Studio Theatre in Sheffield from 29 June to 14 July 2018, for more information or to book tickets visit www.sheffieldtheatres.co.uk or call the box office on 0114 249 6000.

Crucible Theatre, 55 Norfolk Street, Sheffield, S1 1DA | 0114 249 6000