Love - (Modern Plays) 2nd Edition by Alexander Zeldin (Paperback)

About the Book

"This edition, with changes to the script, published 2017"--Colophon.

Book Synopsis

But you can't do this to us - my partner is about to have a baby and we need to eat and pay rent - and we need to eat - how is this legal!

In the run-up to Christmas, three families are placed into cramped temporary accommodation.

A middle-aged man and his elderly mum, a young family with a baby on the way, a newly arrived woman from Sudan. Strangers. Forced together. No space is personal.

In this play by Alexander Zeldin, written through a devising process, the audience are invited to bear witness to an intimate story of family love for our times.

Love received its world premiere at the National Theatre, London, in the Dorfman Theatre, on 13 December 2016 and opened at Birmingham Rep on 26 January 2017.

Review Quotes

It's an elegy to an invisible class ... This is character-driven theatre at its purest ... It's a play about what unremitting poverty does to the soul, where poverty is not starvation, but life without dignity.
Spectator on "Beyond Caring"

Totally compelling ... This understated 90 minutes is quietly devastating ... As time moves, slowly, the whole thing gradually becomes more and more heightened, emotionally and theatrically. The beauty of the piece ... is that it eschews sob stories in favour of genuine tragedy. Just as these people keep themselves pretty much to themselves until the final, desperate moments, so the play always slyly shows and never tells. There are no big speeches. There is much awkward silence. People reveal themselves in small gestures ... There are gusts of sadness; moments of pure desolation. But mostly there is work, with people struggling to survive: to the end of the shift, the end of the day, to the end of life itself.
Guardian on "Beyond Caring"

Beyond Caring seethes. It brings your blood to boiling point.
Time Out

About the Author

Alexander Zeldin has, since 2011, formed an ensemble of actors in the UK with the aim of collaborating together long term in projects where he writes. Their projects include Doing the Idiots (National Theatre Studio 2012 - a response to Lars Von Trier's film The Idiots), Shemehe and Beyond Caring (Yard Theatre, 2013). His work has been recognised by a nomination to the Rolex Mentor Protege Award in 2012, for the leading young artistic voices of the future.