Love Alone

By Deborah Salem Smith

Directed by Melissa Kievman

Originally produced at Trinity Repertory Company, Providence, RI.

February 28, 2012 through May 27, 2012

About the Premiere Production: After a routine medical procedure goes tragically wrong, a lawsuit ensues and the lives of both the patient’s family and the doctor charged with her care are transformed. Tracking both sides, this remarkable drama is a lovingly drawn portrait of how we grieve and how we heal.

Artistic Statement: The themes of Love Alone are wide-ranging; it is the story of mothers, daughters, spouses, doctors, lawyers. Love Alone compels us to reflect on how we treat those we love in times of crisis, how we maintain control of our lives when we lose people we love; and how we recover when our professional reputations disintegrate. But it also asks us to look at important issues in our society: What is the role of medicine in today’s world? Which institutions can we trust—hospitals? the courts? Why do gay and straight couples not enjoy equal protection and rights under the law? What effect does the lack of a gay partner’s rights have on the couple’s children? The play is the perfect combination of heart and mind, thinking and feeling. It disarms us with emotion, going straight to our hearts, striking chords of emotional loss we have all experienced one way or another, and then frees us to consider these confounding social questions. The shared experience of the play gives audiences the opportunity to face those questions together.

Grant Statement: Funding from the Edgerton Foundation allows us to extend our rehearsal period by one week – giving the artistic team the gift of time to continue to strengthen the production. The extra rehearsal time is especially valuable, as the actors in Love Alone will also be appearing in or rehearsing for one of the other two world premieres that we are producing in repertory next spring.

Director: Melissa Kievman

Set Design: Eugene Lee

Sound Design: Peter Sasha Hurowitz

Costume Design: William Lane

Cast: Anne Scurria, Angela Brazil, Mauro Hantman, Richard Donnelly, Janice Duclos

News

"Love Alone"

The Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine

August 4, 2012