Love Letters
On Broadway at The Brooks Atkinson Theatre

 

Even though I kept telling myself that there is no way I am going to enjoy two people (I don’t care who they are) reading letters from a desk on the stage, I have to give everything a chance and that is why I was sitting in the Brooks Atkinson Theatre today watching Love Letters read by Brian Dennehy and the legendary Carol Burnett.  

 

This show already opened to great reviews, but I was still not so convinced.  

 

There were so many things that touched me about this production.  In the first place I was touched by Carol Burnett.  I could not remember childhood without remembering Carol Burnett pulling on her ear and saying goodnight after singing “I’m so glad we had this time together”.  This was not so much a story about love letters for me as it was about the lost art of the written letter.  The readings track the like/love “friendship” relationship of Melissa Gardner and Andrew Makepeace Ladd III that spans a period of over 40 years, from grade school to Prep school to College to Grad school to marriage to rehab to war to children to divorce and to marriage again and more children and more divorce. It’s a true life diary of two people who have always seemed to be there for each other and I got the sense that they survived impossible situations because of the letters that they shared.  It was a thoroughly enchanting 90 minutes.

 

This may have touched me in a special way because I happen to love to write.   I never feel more like myself than when I’m sitting down and writing a letter or anything meaningful.  I can never do it as well in person.   I still have a callous on my middle finger from before the days of computers and email, when pen to paper was the only choice.    And while you can communicate via email I find it so much easier to hit the delete button than it is to part with the written letters that I received over the years.  If it wasn’t for one very tumultuous breakup, I might still have those letters that my daddy sent me when he was working in Nigeria, or the ones from my Mom when she was in Puerto Rico for almost a year caring for her aging parents.  Or the ones from my favorite high school teacher when she was on vacation in Spain, and wanted to share the whole experience with me.  Those letters may no longer be in my possession, but they are still in my heart.   I can still remember the excitement of going to the mailbox, and looking at the familiar handwriting and the seal on the envelope and being more excited than I could imagine at what surprises might lie inside.  Maybe there would even be a photograph.

 

So what ThisbroadSway is really trying to tell you is to please write me a letter, seal it with a kiss…or just go see Love Letters and let me know if you loved it too. –ThisbroadSway 10/12/2014