Part dreamscape, part musings on his own marriage, Trent Dalton’s Love Stories is a stage adaptation by Tim McGarry, Fiona Franzmann and Dalton himself of his best-selling book which resulted from two months in which Dalton famously sat on a street corner in Brisbane asking strangers to tell him a love story.
Sam Strong’s remarkable staging embraces a surprising amount of dance, choreographed by QL2 Alumni Nerida Matthaei, in which characters, words and movement entwine as a ballet with words in which a succession of stories becomes a rapturous idyll illustrating the many forms of love.
Only Jason Klarwein and Anna McGahan as characters Husband and Wife, (presumably Dalton and his real-life wife, Fiona), and Rashidi Edward, as a delightfully whimsical character called Jean Benoit, perform continuing roles.
Elsewhere, Valerie Bader, Hsin-Ju Ely, Joss McWilliam, Ngoc Phan, Bryan Probets, Will Tran, Jacob Watton between them portrayed the myriad of real-life characters and their stories, drawn from the interviews conducted by Dalton during his two-months street corner sojourn.
Two of the couples whose stories are featured in this adaptation were in the Canberra Theatre audience on opening night, and judging from the shrieks of laughter and murmurs of recognition from surrounding audience members, it was obvious that many were identifying with the experiences being portrayed.
Of course, there are many other elements of Strong’s staging that make it so compelling. Among them, the use of a huge video screen to capture audience members settling into seats pre-performance, and their responses to their previously submitted definitions of love.
Then, during the performance this screen was utilised to display stunning real-time close-ups of the actors captured by an on-stage video-cameraman, Antony Dyer, revealing the affecting connection of the actors to their characters. So engrossing were these images that it was easy to forget the skill of the actors in creating a myriad of characterisations with only minimal use of props or costume changes.
The only disappointment on opening night was that not all the actors had adjusted their performances sufficiently to the size of the Canberra Theatre auditorium. Their over-reliance on their personal mikes to capture what they were saying, resulted in much of Dalton’s dialogue being lost, which combined with the peripatetic staging, made it difficult to keep track of some of the stories.
Hopefully this will have been corrected for later performances, because even with this blemish, judging by the vociferous applause at the end of this performance, many in the audience had identified strongly with the stories represented in this superb production.
Trent Dalton’s Love Stories
Canberra Theatre Centre, Civic Square, Canberra
Performance: Thursday 25 September 2025
Season: 24 – 27 September 2025
Following the Canberra season, Trent Dalton’s Love Stories will play the Darwin Entertainment Centre (2 – 4 October) and HOTA Gold Coast (9 – 11 October).
Images: The Cast of Trent Dalton’s Love Stories – photo by David Kelly | Jason Klarwein, Rashidi Edward and Hsin-Ju Ely in Trent Dalton’s Love Stories – photo by David Kelly
Review: Bill Stephens OAM