Love or Money, Make or Break

Dedicated to Jess

‘Money you’ve made me some very fast friends

And just like you’ve made them

You’re going to break them in the end.’ (Dixon and Glover)

Dennis Kelly the man behind the award-winning Matilda the Musical and Pulling the hit comedy television series delivers something starkly different in Love and Money. His less than inspirational more workmanlike approach prefers not to be influenced by what he thinks the audience would like. Instead he writes to ask questions of the audience, the director and the performers of the play, about interpretation and understanding. He argues that we live in a culture that values things by what you can get out of them, but there are things to value that aren’t economic and this play explores these issues. 

The play opens with David (Will Thorp) having a cyber-affair with Sandrine his French lover whom he has never met. Jess (Sara Lloyd-Gregory) has already died and when the tragic circumstances of her death are relayed to Sandrine the romance and the emails end. Jess had committed suicide, usually the last item on the ‘to do’ list. The play goes on to look at the temptation of a spend, spend culture and girlie crack and how if hooked lives can spiral out of control with disastrous consequences. 

Kelly’s kaleidoscope of a story doesn’t follow a straight line in plot nor time but generally is a retrospective view of an involved love story which demands the utmost concentration from the audience if they are to understand what happens and how the characters relate to each other. It is made up of a series of vignettes through which the audience has to make up its mind why Jess took her own life and what was happening around her that affected her and those she was close to.

Next up are the bereaved parents, Jess’s father (Keiron Self) and mother (Rebecca Harries), standing at the graveside some 19 months on. The mother is a fiery and very emotional character that puts the blame for her daughter’s death on an aged Greek man whose wife is buried next to Jess’s grave. 

The part of Jess’s dad could have been made for Self in an all too brief appearance he portrayed the father’s diffidence to a tee that one felt the need to prompt him into action, but his performance was much more than just a revision course of his parts in My Family and High Hopes. At times it was highly charged especially when describing how he mercilessly destroyed the Greek’s memorial that he and his wife perceived to be a symbol of extreme commercialism that cast a shadow over their daughter’s gravestone.

Rebecca Harries is well known for her role in Belonging and once again her acting played on the emotions of the audience. The mostly dominant partner was at one stage reduced to (real) tears as the dialogue unfolded. Grief, anger, jealousy, humour and guilt are just some of the emotions portrayed by the couple in arguably the most moving scene. Then the story tumbles back into the past.

Jess desperately loves David but she is obsessed with improving their life with material things to find happiness. She maxes out credit cards that by the time of her death she owes £70,000. David goes looking for a job to get more money and visits Val (Joanna Simpkins), one of his ex-girlfriends. In the interview he is belittled by the egotistical, conniving and power-hungry Val but finally given the job at a price.

A surreal sketch followed where the characters are represented by numbers that are interpreted in different ways asking what is more important love or money and whilst it was very informative it was possibly the most demanding vignette for the audience to digest. The delivery nonetheless was portrayed in very artful well written dialogue but it possibly wasn’t helped by the choice of background music.

Jorge Lizalde / Waking Exploits

In the next scene Simpkins plays the seemingly naïve Debbie, although she confesses to some pranks she carried out in her office job. The transformation from the power-hungry, pretentious upper middle class Val to the apparently shy and retiring Debbie was so good one could have thought two actresses were involved.

Gareth Milton, who played Paul the sycophantic companion to Val in the previous scene was convincing as the disreputable agent who was prepared to get any clients out of debt………….but always at a price! 

The rest of the play was taken up by David and Jess the main protagonists. Jess had gone for a job interview but she had witnessed a stabbing and had ended up in the hospital where the victim was taken. David went to see her and eventually in the course of their conversations it came out that Jess had been on another shopping spree, but her purchases were such a surprise that David was reduced to tears.

Will Thorp’s portrayal as a possessive, untrusting husband is well in evidence and is equally matched by that of Sara Lloyd-Gregory as the shopaholic, guilt ridden and withdrawn Jess.

Jorge Lizalde / Waking Exploits

In the penultimate scene Jess shares her thoughts on the meaning of life. The monologue was delivered with exuberance and excitement but it may be a tad too long to hold the audience’s attention throughout. 

The final scene shows the love for each other that did exist without the interference of the commercial world and is sealed with a kiss.

The play is remarkable for Ryan Romain’s incisive and dynamic direction and the not surprisingly excellent performances by all the cast. Those are reasons enough for it to be a must to do on one’s list, but the final interpretation of the messages is up to the individual…………….and what of torpedo and his fish tank?

Is it representative of the claustrophobic, oppressive environment in which the characters live and which the audience observes without restriction or are the members of the audience in their own fish tanks? You must decide.