“Love Letters” Writes from the Heart By Dayna Cerafice Posted:02/26/10
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Atlantic Highlands - At First Avenue Playhouse the room is filled, the lights go down, and there are only two people on the stage. Directed by Robert Kern, and starring Donne Petito and Eric Walby, the First Avenue Playhouse, Atlantic Highlands, brings you "Love Letters," the endearing story of two young friends who grow something more than just a friendship through the power of words.
When you are first introduced to Melissa Gardener and Andrew (Andy) Makepeace Ladd III, they are just children from two wealthy families. Through the letters that they have written to one another over the course of 50 years, you learn more about each of them, and the relationship they have built, both within their letters and outside of them. For whatever outside sources kept them apart from one another, whether it was their same-sex summer day camps, or the universities they chose to attend later on in life, they were always connected through mail.
Adult life brought on different challenges: for Andy it was the war, for Melissa it was marriage and two daughters. Even though they were both living very different lives, and may have lost touch for some time here and there, they never lost each other. Melissa divorced; Andy returned from war and married someone else. Andy had three sons and earned himself the position of U.S Senator; Melissa picked up an old habit of heavy drinking, but not before the two found themselves in the midst of a love affair. While it seemed like the two were never meant to be, each letter brought them closer together while their lives brought them apart.
Both Petito and Walby showed the true emotions of two people who truly felt love for one another but were marked by the curse of "the wrong place at the wrong time." Each letter read aloud was read with such emotion, it was hard not to lose yourself in their voices, hanging on their every word. Each happy event, you found yourself smiling; sad events, you found yourself crying. It was the story of true, young love that only flourished over time.
To see this love for yourself, visit First Avenue Playhouse. The show is playing through Saturday, February 27th; curtain call at 8:30 p.m. For more information visit firstavenueplayhouse.com, or call 732-291-7552.
Eric Walby and Donne Petito in A.R. Gurney's "Love Letters." The show runs from Feb. 5 to 27 every Thursday, Friday and Saturday evening at First Avenue Playhouse, 123 First Ave., Atlantic Highlands, at 8:30 p.m. with Sunday matinee on January 17 at 2:30 p.m
