Play based on Essays in Love novel coming to Whangārei

Director Oliver Driver, centre, fell in love with the novel, Essays in Love.

"Perhaps it is true that we do not really exist until there is someone there to see us existing, we cannot properly speak until there is someone who can understand what we are saying. In essence, we are not wholly alive until we are loved." Seeing yourself through the eyes, highs and lows of love is the premise of Essays in Love, a new piece of theatre based on the acclaimed novel of the same name, written by the modern day philosopher, Alain de Botton.

Essays In Love follows the journey of recently dumped Otto - an academic his ex-girlfriend Chloe refers to as Socrates - as he tries to quantify and examine the failure of their relationship.

The show takes audiences through the whole arc of love, from first sight, first date, first kiss to the first inkling that something is wrong and then the realisation it is over.

Director Oliver Driver is thrilled to be bringing his passion project to ONEONESIX in Whangārei where it will debut before being staged in Auckland and other centres.

"I remember reading the novel about 10 years ago and, well, falling in love with it," Driver said.

"Its structure is so theatrical, the jumping around in time and space and the long, brilliantly funny tangents it goes on. It read in many ways like an extended riff. I immediately thought it would make a great piece of solo performance.''

The production is the first collaboration between Driver, former artistic director of Auckland Theatre Company and well-known from his work as an actor in Under The Mountain, Shortland Street and Black Sheep, and the Bruce Mason Award winning writer Eli Kent.

Otto (Leon Wadham) doesn't quite get the falling in and out of love stuff.

Leon Wadham, rehearsing his role as the love-lost Otto.

Leon Wadham, rehearsing his role as the love-lost Otto.

"[Otto] brings his academic lens to his heartbreak, trying to chart and graph the specific moments where things went pear-shaped," says Kent. ''But ultimately, like all of us, the only thing he can do is try and get through it. Luckily, what's horrible for him is really fun for us.''

The production stars Leon Wadham as the hapless Otto. No stranger to solo performance, Wadham was last seen by ONEONESIX audiences in his show Giddy.

Giddy was based on his own experience with heartbreak, an irony not lost on Wadham.

"Yeah, there are some definite personal parallels and while this show is definitely different, that same sense of having fun with the audience is still there. It's funny and smart and really moving."

Essays in Love, ONEONESIX, Whangarei, August 6-10. Tickets: $15 from Eventfinda.