Back, in ‘beautifully written play’

Having last performed in a 1974 production of Noël Coward’s Hay Fever, Norman Maclean returns to the stage to play Andrew Makepeace Ladd III, with Liz Minogue as Melissa Gardner in A R Gurney’s epistolary play, Love Letters. Picture supplied

Known as a director for many Unity Theatre shows, Norman Maclean has not performed on stage for 49 years but has made a comeback for Evolution Theatre Company’s production of Love Letters.

The epistolary nature of the play appealed to Maclean.

“Letter writing is dear to my heart,” he says. “I’m one of these people who still write letters.”

Maclean enjoys the personal aspect of letter writing, the tangibility of letters and that they are not reduced to a few sentences peppered with acronyms.

“No one hangs up emails they get at Christmas,” he says.

Cast as Andrew Makepeace Ladd III in the Elizabeth Stevens-directed production, Maclean is paired with Liz Minogue as Melissa Gardner.

In A R Gurney’s play, a finalist for the 1988 Pulitzer prize for drama, actors sit side by  side and, in character, read the notes, letters and cards they have exchanged over close to 50 years.

Their lifelong correspondence begins with birthday party thank-you notes and summer camp postcards. Over the ensuing decades they share with one another their aspirations and relationships, their successes and failures. Andy excels at Yale and law school while Melissa drops out of a series of schools. Andy goes to war, Melissa marries; Andy rises in the political world, Melissa’s marriage tanks, but the two stay in touch, and become closer, through their letters.

The play is beautifully written and is written to be read, says Maclean.

“There’s a lot of humour in it and a good deal of pathos. There are situations everyone recognises because it’s life’s journey. You grow up with great ideals but destiny takes you somewhere else.” He cites John Lennon’s famous quote, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans”.

“The character I play is an ambitious boy, then man, who sees a clear path to what he wants, to fulfil his ambition, whereas his dear friend has many more twists and turns in her life than he does,” says Maclean.

“He is academic and conservative, she is wild and adventurous and given to spontaneous changes in the direction of her life.

“They can annoy each other in different ways but they have this close bond and remain friends.”

Stevens has cast different pairs of experienced actors for the Evolution Theatre production. Maclean and Minogue make their final appearance as Andy and Melissa tomorrow night, Elizabeth and Alex Raines take to the stage on Friday, Dinna Myers and Hugo McGuinness perform on Saturday while Julie McPhail and Mike Costello round off the season on Sunday.