Jake Mace
Separated by an invisible wall and illuminated by the glare of their phone screens, two young Queers try their best to express themselves through text messages between one another. Miscommunications, mistypes, and mistakes collide in a world where reading between the lines is the only way to get a sense of how their counterpart is feeling. A gay relationship is charted from fledgling, flirty beginnings to bitter, twisted ends in this poetic, heartfelt portrayal of how modern communication tethers us together, and may ultimately, pull us apart.
Lewis Merrylees plays the understated, sometimes misanthropic, often misunderstood, stoic scientist to the counterpart of Jonathan Rubin’s bubbly, expressive, and politically-minded literature student. The pair stare outwards into the void as they deliver their lines, their faces twitching and convulsing as words intended as compliments turn sour in the filter of text messaging. They only turn to look at one another in several powerful, poignant moments – and even in these times the deeper you watch the more you realise they may be looking at one another but in reality they are looking through each other.
Both perform the wordy and difficult text with skill and fervour. Emojis shared between each other are highlighted by the use of a whistle, laying bare what those totems on our screens represent, a call out to the other, for recognition, for clarity. Despite barely looking at each other the duo have impeccable chemistry, reaching a crescendo during a sexting scene delivered near-monotone, which is a stark and interesting representation of how our bodies become images and words in those intimate online instances.
Merrylees captures a sense of sardonic insularity in his character that might initially pigeon-hole his character as a mysterious, misanthropic stranger. As we delver further within his psyche, Merrylees quite believably unravels this character’s vulnerabilities. Rubin, on the other hand, draws on the audience’s kind sensibilities to make his character appear innocent and naïve, yet each are as complex as one another. Each as three-dimensional, and as one character explores their sexuality further, we come to realise that these words on screens are forming new, evolving senses of personhood for these people.
From an academic conference exploring Marxism through to a first proper date, sharing a bed, and eventually coming to find solace in one another while experiencing confusion and heartbreak when they read in between the lines. The story is presented in a dis-contiguous fashion, and its unclear how much time has passed between each conversation. An LED board above the pair denotes chapter titles derived from their text chats. This episodic delivery is impactful, and makes the piece even more relatable, as we watch this relationship develop, unwind, rewind, we see fragments of the misunderstood conversations we’ve all had reflected in them.
The language deployed is a little too heavy-handed at points. The pair seem to lay bare their opinions to one another as clearly as possible, to the point where some of the vocabulary used seems too obtuse, or the sentiment seems convoluted. Long chats about Marxism, materialism, science, and Irish literature work fine in the context of the pair’s backgrounds but come across as too obvious for an audience. It feels like sometimes there’s not enough metaphor in a piece that’s all about extracting meaning from words and language.
Despite this, the moments of comedy, often deriving from razor-sharp social commentary and playing on pre-conceptions about Queer relationships is delivered strongly.
The format has its limits. While the performances carry the story along comfortably, the static nature of the pair’s relationships can sometimes feel a little too aloof to deliver. But when this piece does deliver chemistry, by all means it is magnetic.
Messy yet precise, sticky yet stuck – this pair seem doomed from the start but drag themselves through hell and back to try and make their relationship work. Can’t we all relate to that? Heartfelt, attuned, authentic – Long Distance fills in the blanks of a sketch of a troubled relationship with style and electricity.
Recommended Drink: A Manhattan cocktail – bittersweet, complex, sexy.
You can catch Long Distance until August 25th at ZOO Playground – Playground 2 from 14:00. Tickets are available through the EdFringe Box Office.
Phoebe Bakker
