Trent Dalton’s Love Stories ★★★
Playhouse, QPAC, until September 29
The Love Stories book is a collection of anecdotes Trent Dalton famously obtained by setting up on the edge of King George Square for two months with his Olivetti typewriter and seeing who stopped by to chat.
It’s been warmly embraced by Brisvegans, romantics, and Boy Swallows Universe superfans, and it paints vivid portraits of a clutch of people who generously shared their true experiences.
Bryan Probets and Jason Klarwein in the Brisbane Festival/QPAC production of Trent Dalton’s Love Stories.Credit: Craig Wilkinson
Dalton himself has admitted he’s “the biggest cheeseball”, and the book has a sentimental streak about as wide as the Brown Snake itself that this lively stage adaptation goes some way towards mitigating.
This Brisbane Festival/QPAC production reunites the team that made Queensland Theatre’s Boy Swallows Universe – including director Sam Strong, writer Tim McGarry, designer Renee Mulder, lighting designer Ben Hughes, video designer Craig Wilkinson and composer Stephen Francis.
The always-charismatic Jason Klarwein stars as the Dalton proxy, and he gets a likeable co-narrator in Rashidi Edward’s Jean-Benoit, the Rwandan busker Dalton met when he was drumming on an Osmocote fertiliser bucket.
Strong’s direction evokes the restless currents of a bustling city. Characters come and go, figures on the video screen compete for our attention, and dance sequences choreographed by Dr Nerida Mattai – performed by Jacob Watton and Hsin-Ju Ely – add a poetic dimension.
Jason Klarwein and Michala Banas play proxy characters similar to Trent Dalton and Fiona Franzmann.Credit: David Kelly
We meet characters such as the non-deaf girl who learns sign language in order to say “I love you” to her beau from a distance (Kimie Tsukakoshi); the pyjama-wearing oddball famous for gatecrashing the State of Origin (Harry Tseng); and the aspiring actress who is dumped by her partner a week after moving to Brisbane in a paradoxical act of love (Ely).