What do you think?
Rate this book
Love
But you can't do this to us - my partner is about to have a baby and we need to eat and pay rent - and we need to eat - how is this legal!
In the run-up to Christmas, three families are placed into cramped temporary accommodation.
A middle-aged man and his elderly mum, a young family with a baby on the way, a newly arrived woman from Sudan. Strangers. Forced together. No space is personal.
In this play by Alexander Zeldin, written through a devising process, the audience are invited to bear witness to an intimate story of family love for our times.
Love received its world premiere at the National Theatre, London, in the Dorfman Theatre, on 13 December 2016 and opened at Birmingham Rep on 26 January 2017.
In the run-up to Christmas, three families are placed into cramped temporary accommodation.
A middle-aged man and his elderly mum, a young family with a baby on the way, a newly arrived woman from Sudan. Strangers. Forced together. No space is personal.
In this play by Alexander Zeldin, written through a devising process, the audience are invited to bear witness to an intimate story of family love for our times.
Love received its world premiere at the National Theatre, London, in the Dorfman Theatre, on 13 December 2016 and opened at Birmingham Rep on 26 January 2017.
80 pages, Paperback
Published February 16, 2017
About the author
Alexander Zeldin
11 books1 followerAlexander Zeldin is a writer and director for theatre. He trained on the Jerwood Young Directors course at The Old Vic and has taken part in residencies at the Egyptian Centre for Culture and Art and at Studio Emad Eddin in Cairo. His critically-acclaimed play, Beyond Caring, which examined the effects of zero hours contracts had its World Premiere at The Yard Theatre in Hackney in 2014, before transferring to the Temporary Theatre at the National Theatre in London in 2015. In 2015, Alex was the recipient of The Quercus Trust Award and was appointed as Associate Director at The Birmingham Repertory Theatre. Beyond Caring toured the UK in 2016 and his play LOVE opened at the National Theatre.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 20, 2023
4,5, rounded down.
Although chronologically Zelkin's second play created in conjunction with his cast, a loose trilogy known as The Inequalities: Beyond Caring; LOVE; Faith, Hope and Charity, it was the last one I read - which was appropriate if one is saving the best for last. It also received the best reviews, in a touring production that played the UK, all around Europe and in NYC -and I can see why. Due to the method of composition, these plays are both hyper-realistic and eschew conventional plotting; which means they can be riveting on occasion, as if one is eavesdropping on real life - but also somewhat boring in spots when one is watching mundane activities like making toast, that seem to lead nowhere.
This one takes place in temporary housing for the homeless and revolves around a family evicted from their home for being unable to afford an exorbitant rent hike, and unable to get the powers that be to straighten out the mess - father Dean is also temporarily unemployed, his partner Emma is heavily pregnant, and his two children from a previous relationship are needy and disgruntled.
The other major players are Barbara, an elderly incontinent woman sinking into dementia and her caregiver son, Colin, and two refugees - a woman from Sudan and a young man from Syria - these two are not quite fully developed due to a lack of enough stage time - and their one major scene together is enacted entirely in Arabic, making them further inscrutable for most of the audience.
It's an important piece about the needless inhumanity bureaucracy inflicts upon the unfortunate - and the timeless endurance of the titular human virtue.
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/201...
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/201...
https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/th...
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/02/th...
https://www.thewrap.com/love-off-broa...
https://www.vulture.com/2023/03/theat...
Although chronologically Zelkin's second play created in conjunction with his cast, a loose trilogy known as The Inequalities: Beyond Caring; LOVE; Faith, Hope and Charity, it was the last one I read - which was appropriate if one is saving the best for last. It also received the best reviews, in a touring production that played the UK, all around Europe and in NYC -and I can see why. Due to the method of composition, these plays are both hyper-realistic and eschew conventional plotting; which means they can be riveting on occasion, as if one is eavesdropping on real life - but also somewhat boring in spots when one is watching mundane activities like making toast, that seem to lead nowhere.
This one takes place in temporary housing for the homeless and revolves around a family evicted from their home for being unable to afford an exorbitant rent hike, and unable to get the powers that be to straighten out the mess - father Dean is also temporarily unemployed, his partner Emma is heavily pregnant, and his two children from a previous relationship are needy and disgruntled.
The other major players are Barbara, an elderly incontinent woman sinking into dementia and her caregiver son, Colin, and two refugees - a woman from Sudan and a young man from Syria - these two are not quite fully developed due to a lack of enough stage time - and their one major scene together is enacted entirely in Arabic, making them further inscrutable for most of the audience.
It's an important piece about the needless inhumanity bureaucracy inflicts upon the unfortunate - and the timeless endurance of the titular human virtue.
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/201...
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/201...
https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/th...
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/02/th...
https://www.thewrap.com/love-off-broa...
https://www.vulture.com/2023/03/theat...
October 29, 2023
Austerity Britain. Temporary housing in all its glory.
December 29, 2019
LOVE, a big word facing the struggle and daily obstacles in meeting the physical and safety needs of a human being. (The first two stairs from 5 in Maslow’s pyramid of needs).
Different strangers are forced to live in one place, share space and bathroom, face the routinely occupied bathroom, the lack of privacy, the pressure of having to meet and deal with strangers every time any of them steps out of his room, along with the lack of food.
.
Until anger takes place leading to a climax point that follows the decline of love, eventually the fading of love..
while repeating the word would be nothing but a form of cliche..
Different strangers are forced to live in one place, share space and bathroom, face the routinely occupied bathroom, the lack of privacy, the pressure of having to meet and deal with strangers every time any of them steps out of his room, along with the lack of food.
.
Until anger takes place leading to a climax point that follows the decline of love, eventually the fading of love..
while repeating the word would be nothing but a form of cliche..
February 27, 2023
Fast paced and brief, this play is an interesting intersection of people, characters and stories brought together by a variety of dire circumstances and struggling to make sense of how they all might find their way out of an increasingly deseperate and hopeless situation.
It's a raw depiction of what life is like on the edge of society's support systems, each of the characters attempting to navigate the Kafka-esque nightmare that is the British welfare system. I wish it was longer, giving us a bit more depth to the characters, their stories and letting them interact for longer courses of dialogue.
It's a raw depiction of what life is like on the edge of society's support systems, each of the characters attempting to navigate the Kafka-esque nightmare that is the British welfare system. I wish it was longer, giving us a bit more depth to the characters, their stories and letting them interact for longer courses of dialogue.
December 13, 2023
I can see how powerful this play would be to be performed with the audience amongst the actors with the house lights up.
It actually makes it pretty powerful.
My only thing is I can sense how some would be upset over the some of lack of conflict-- granted, I would beg to differ that our anger watching would be all the conflict it needs.
It actually makes it pretty powerful.
My only thing is I can sense how some would be upset over the some of lack of conflict-- granted, I would beg to differ that our anger watching would be all the conflict it needs.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews