The Lovers
Much of what we learn about love comes from the media we consume. For me, the idea of love was always intertwined with play. “Love at first sight” was an unattainable ideal that existed only on screen. Shakespeare, perhaps one of the most well-known Western and colonial storytellers, captured the complicated realities of love in ways that still resonate today: that it is meddlesome, ever-evolving and often sustained by blind faith in an unspoken kind of magic.
Laura Murphy’s (The Dismissal, Zombie! The Musical) adaptation of the Bard’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Lovers, leads with magic. Its music and lyrics are grounded in the modern-day sensibilities of love – swiping right, choosing frivolity over fervour, and navigating the ongoing feminist challenge of knowing oneself while giving to another – all set to the perfect pop soundtrack for a meet-cute. For the theatre-savvy, Murphy’s musical realises the promise that &Juliet only flirted with, doing so through an entirely original score that wins the audience over with novelty rather than nostalgia.
What’s the premise of The Lovers?
Helena (Natalie Abbott, Muriel’s Wedding, Zombie! The Musical) loves Demetrius (Jason Arrow, Hamilton), who loves Hermia (Loren Hunter, Six), who loves Lysander (Mat Verevis, The Tina Turner Musical) – a classic love quadrangle complicated by friendship, loyalty and the constraints of parental approval. When Hermia defies her father and runs off with Lysander into the magical forest, chaos...