REVIEW: Heartwarming And Harrowing in Turns, NO LOVE SONGS Is a Poignantly Personal Expression Of The Realities Of Life Not Often Shown On Stage

NO LOVE SONGS, Kyle Falconer (songs), Laura Wilde (book) and Johnny McKnight’s (book) musical theatre treatment of Falconer’s solo album No Love Songs For Laura is presented with humour and honesty by Lucy Maunder and Keegan Joyce.  Directors Andrew Panton and Tashi Gore, recreate their Dundee Rep and Scottish Dance Theatre production for the Sydney premiere. 

The premise of the work is that everyone has a soundtrack to their lives, often also including songs relating to love and loss.  This dramatizing of Kyle Falconer’s second solo album, No Love Songs For Laura, with reference to Laura Wilde, his life partner and mother to his three children, sees the songs played as the soundtrack to Lana (Maunder) and Jessie’s (Joyce) life, characters inspired by Wilde and Falconer.  On a simple stage that connects the work to Jessie’s life as a gig-musician often found playing in seedy bars, the musician and the aspiring fashion student Lana meet, move in together and start a family.  While Lana seems to have things under control it soon becomes clear that motherhood isn’t all its cracked up to be, and with Jessie away on tour, she’s struggling to cope. 

Supported by Mark Chamberlin (Music Director) on keys Maunder and Joyce deliver Lana and Jessie’s story with clarity, aided by the use of hand held microphones used when conveying the inner monologues or presenting the songs to connect the work to the gig-music origins.  Maunder’s vocals are as always wonderful to experience as is her dramatic and comedic stylings where she balances caricature and honesty to easily convey Lana’s personality and emotions.  She delivers the weightiest part of this performance with sensitivity but also realism to ensure that the gravity of postnatal depression in new mothers is not downplayed.  She is equally paired with Joyce who delivers Jessie’s songs with passion while his personality remains somewhat closed off and limited which further reinforces a regular issue in relationships of loved ones being emotionally unaware to the cues their partners are giving.  He conveys Jessie’s passion and devastation with the right blend of subtlety for a person not used to expressing his feelings overtly.

At approximately 80 minutes NO LOVE SONGS is an emotion packed performance that provokes thought and consideration of how we look after the new parents in our lives given that for Australia, 1 in 5 mothers and 1 in 10 fathers experience postnatal depression in the first year after the birth of a child.  NO LOVE SONGS may not contain an explicit love song, but it is a wonderful contemporary expression of love that isn’t afraid of sharing the harder side of life.

https://nolovesongs.com.au/

Photos: Brett Boardman

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