STAGE REVIEW : ‘Love Letters’ a Telling Tale at Old Globe

When A.R. Gurney’s characters Andrew Makepeace Ladd III and Melissa Gardner began writing to each other in the second grade, neither would have categorized their exchange as “love letters.”

But as their friendship progressed during the course of more than half a century, the correspondence proved to be just that in Gurney’s stirring “Love Letters,” now in its San Diego premiere at the Old Globe Theatre.

It may have taken Andy and Melissa a lifetime to realize that they were falling in love, but it takes audiences only a few minutes to fall in love with the show.

The success of “Love Letters” in New York, Los Angeles and other cities is proof that words can make theater, without the razzle-dazzle of fancy scenery. In fact, the early success of “Love Letters” reportedly came as a surprise to the New York producers of another Old Globe hit, Gurney’s “The Cocktail Hour.”

“Love Letters” premiered in New York in 1989, playing in the Promenade Theatre on the dark nights during the run of “The Cocktail Hour;” it later proved so popular that when “The Cocktail Hour” closed, “Love Letters” took over the theater.

Apparently the same chemistry is working here. The stage of the Old Globe itself, so accustomed to the latest in stage finery, is denuded of all but a table, two reading stands for the scripted letters, two chairs and two glasses of water for the two sole characters, this week played by Elizabeth Montgomery and Robert Foxworth.

The power of their performances, directed sensitively by Old Globe artistic director Jack O’Brien, is a welcome reminder that theater, in the end, is not about state-of-the-art effects, but about people--their dreams, frustrations and yearnings for love, as well as public affirmation and acceptance.

And--as the players will rotate on a weekly basis, another common characteristic of “Love Letters”--audiences will get a chance to sample the subtle changes in electricity that comes as different actors reinterpret the script.

Each new pair will get a crack at interpreting Andy Ladd and Melissa Gardner, who might seem to be opposite types from the same privileged class that Gurney always chronicles so well. His is a world of boarding schools and absent parents in which one’s sense of oneself can easily slip between the cracks of manner and image.

Andy is raised with a sense of responsibility that stifles his spontaneity, his willingness to take chances. The key lesson he absorbs from his upbringing is that his duty to family comes first, then his duty to society, and then to himself. If there is even a glimmer of a dangerous side to Andy, it is the side that is attracted to Melissa.

Melissa is richer, wilder and more artistic, but also more troubled. Her parents divorced when she is young. The first of her mother’s several remarriages is to a stepfather who abuses her; her father’s remarriage, to which she initially looked forward, ends up as some thing she refuses to talk about at all.

Gurney keeps the play lively by playing with the rhythm of the exchanges. Sometimes, the responses from letter to letter are quick and brief line-to-line answers that capture the flow of conversation. Sometimes, one writer is long-winded and stuffy (usually Andy) and the other acerbic. And sometimes, when one character doesn’t want to respond to a letter, the other just writes letter after letter until a response is obtained.

“She doesn’t write,” Andy says poignantly when Melissa doesn’t respond to his questions about her visit with her father. “She doesn’t write,” he says after he sends still another letter. “She doesn’t write.”

Foxworth captures the solidity of Andy, as Montgomery conveys the brittle sauciness of Melissa. They react to each other beautifully--with jealousy, anxiety, anger and sometimes with the kind of broad-grinned pleasure that comes when you’re brought up short by the one person who can see right through you.

They also make you desperately hope for this couple to realize how much they need each other. They make you want to see them gamble everything on love, even though the stakes, given the families and the careers they’ve created in the interim, are quite high. They succeed in the most important way actors can--they make you care.

An added delight of “Love Letters” is the powerful case Gurney makes for the power of written correspondence. In a time when communication is over the minute one hangs up a phone, he makes a convincing case for the letter as one of the few ways people can give of themselves in a lasting way.

Here’s to “Love Letters” both at the Old Globe--and in life.

“LOVE LETTERS”

By A.R. Gurney. Director is Jack O’Brien. Lighting by Barth Ballard. Stage manager is Douglas Pagliotti. With Elizabeth Montgomery and Robert Foxworth through Oct. 26. With Beth Howland and Charles Kimbrough Oct. 30-Nov. 4. With Sada Thompson and Kevin McCarthy Nov. 6-11. With Paul Winfield and Margaret Avery Nov. 13-18. With Jack O’Brien and Michael Learned Nov. 19-25. Additional casting will be announced as extensions are scheduled, through a possible closing date of Jan. 6. At 8 p.m. through Wednesday, 5 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. performances Thursday and Friday. Oct. 30-Nov. 18: at 8 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday and 7 p.m. Sunday with Saturday/Sunday matinees at 2 p.m. Nov. 19-25: Monday-Wednesday and Friday-Saturday and 7 p.m. Sunday with Saturday/Sunday matinees at 2 p.m. No Thursday performance during Thanksgiving week. At the Old Globe Theatre, Simon Edison Center for the Performing Arts, Balboa Park, 239-2255.