This is a micro-musical: two performers, accompanied by a musician on key board – whole thing 80 minutes long.
Apparently, it’s inspired by the life experiences of song writer, Kyle Falconer, and one of the writers of the book, Laura Wilde. (The other writer is Johnny McKnight, and the piece is directed by Andrew Panton and Tashi Gore.)
As the title suggests, it’s a relationship story, but not your conventional one. This is no romance ending with And Reader, I married him. A baby is born in the third scene.
How do Lana and Jess navigate this new arrival?
Hint: it’s not a baby bliss story.
Firstly, I’ll be shallow and sharp.
Neither character is particularly charming. They’re incredibly judgemental, criticising her mother, the women at play group, and even a guy who wears socks (or doesn’t wear socks?) with a particular type of shoe. A lot of things are shite. A lot of emotions are punctuated with fuck. And we hear about her vag, her tits, and the need to shit while giving birth.
Despite referring to themselves as the Dream Team, Lana and Jess never seem particularly close, and this is emphasised by the structure of the piece, in which each often sings alone, or talks directly to the audience about the other.
And they constantly refer to the baby as the Little Man, suggesting they haven’t really got their heads around the fact he’s a child, and the enormity of their new responsibilities. (And it left me wondering if they would’ve referred to a female child as the Little Woman.)
They’re really just oversized adolescents who need to grow up.
But, as I suggested, I’m being sharp and shallow.
To respond in this manner to dramatic characters is to deny the sophistication of the dramatic form.
Let me dig deeper.
There’s hints of a troubled prehistory. One of the early songs, musing on their future as parents, expresses the hope they don’t become monsters. This begs a backstory we’re never told, this pathos-inducing hope betraying unacknowledged darknesses in their own pasts, and effectively establishing how self-unaware these characters are.
But I’m still sticking to the surface, the spoiler rule holding me back – but the need for content warning, and a more genuine assessment are pushing me forward.
It’s story of postnatal depression.
And that can hit any woman. Charming or not. Self-aware or not. And it does, with a dreadful, often unrecognised, frequency.
No Love Songs’ raw portrayal of the pain of this experience is wonderfully honest (and transcends all the other chip-on-the-shoulder type of supposed honesty that otherwise pervades the piece, the type that automatically equates Telling it how it is with ugliness, and seems unable to do anything but assume that there actually is A way it is.)
Keegan Joyce and Lucy Maunder give terrific portrayals of these challenging characters. Accomplished musical performers, they present the songs beautifully, and the dialogue with skill. The jokes work, and the suffering is heartrending.
Falconer’s songs are engaging and the music is splendidly produced (though I did wonder whether an arrangement beyond synthesiser keyboard and acoustic guitar might have been interestingly edgy.) It was a joy to hear every word (except, perhaps, when Lana was rhymed with trauma.)
The piece is billed as a modern love story. It’s an intriguing piece of code, one best deciphered as a comment on what this story is comfortable exploring, as against suggesting this story is concerned with particularly modern aspects of love. Because these things have always happened and hopefully, in bravely speaking of them, those who suffer can find the support they deserve.
Paul Gilchrist
No Love Songs by Kyle Falconer, Laura Wilde and Johnny McKnight,
at The Foundry Theatre, at Sydney Lyric,
until 13 April
Image by Brett Boardman
Theatre Red 