Love Letters
Review by Ian McLaren

I was invited to see Love Letters at Garrison Little Theatre in Fort Erie. Beforehand, I was told that this was not a traditional play with a large cast. Instead, there were just two characters, Andy and Melissa, sitting side by side at their desks, reading the letters they had written to one another over the course of their lives.

​

Quite frankly, I wasn't sure this was going to be a play for me.

 

However, I have always had a fervent love of handwriting and the handwritten letter, so I decided to keep an open mind.

 

It wasn't long before I was completely drawn into the lifelong bond between Andy and Melissa. Like all good writing, their letters stirred emotions and awakened memories from my own past—some long forgotten—and I found myself affected far more deeply than I had expected.

 

At one point, Andy mentions writing to Melissa with his Parker 51 fountain pen.

 

Suddenly, I was nine years old again.

 

In 1956, my father was posted with the RAF to Cologne, Germany. In my class at school was a girl named Daphne, with whom I was completely smitten.

 

Oh, how I would have loved to write Daphne a beautiful handwritten love letter with my pride and joy—my own Parker 51 fountain pen.

 

There was only one problem.

 

Daphne had made it quite clear that she rather fancied my pen. So what was a nine-year-old chap hopelessly in love supposed to do?

 

I GAVE DAPHNE MY TREASURED PARKER 51 FOUNTAIN PEN!

 

I hadn't thought about that pen—or that moment—for decades. Then Andy mentioned his Parker 51, and in an instant Love Letters brought back the memory of my first love.

 

And perhaps that is what touched me most about the play.

 

It captures the beauty and mystery of the handwritten letter—how a few words put down on paper can create an intimate and lasting bond between two people, and how those words can somehow carry a lifetime of memories with them.

 

I never expected to be so moved by such a seemingly simple, two-character play.

 

The relationship between Andy and Melissa was genuine, touching and wonderfully bittersweet. Both actors did a fine job of bringing these two people and their lifetime together to life. The intimate seating and lighting also contributed beautifully to the atmosphere of the evening.

 

I went in wondering whether Love Letters was really a play for me.

 

I came out remembering a little girl named Daphne and a Parker 51 fountain pen I gave away seventy years ago.

 

I'd say that's the power of good theatre.

 

Well done, Garrison Little Theatre.