To capture period and place, the melodic tune of ‘Moon River’ from ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s takes us to 1950s Brooklyn: on the table is a vintage typewriter and NY Times. Joan is an ambitious, 23 year old graduate of Columbia University’s Playwriting MFA, but rather distracted from work to type letters to her boyfriend, Leonard.
July 17th 1956,
Dear Len, .. I am dreadfully happy, I shall write every day .. .and forego the feminine right to be hard to get.! …. When I have finally discovered someone who I can communicate thoughts to without sending up flares … why begrudge me my place in the sun? Lots of love, Joan
Two years ago, Joan’s granddaughter, Samantha Streit, an actor & writer, found a collection of hundreds of love letters between her grandparents: ‘Her letters, full of fire and longing, were packed away for decades until I found them. Now, those letters have become a play, This is my love letter back to her to explore the echoes of her dreams in my own life.”
In navy shorts, white vest top and lime-green cardigan, Samantha plays Joan, who is infectiously happy sharing her feelings and stories with Len. With an imaginative time-travel twist, she then simply takes off the cardigan to play herself in the present day, chatting to Leonard, her grandfather over hot chocolate at a Diner. She is keen to find out how they met (he was a life guard and they went to see ‘Guys and Dolls’). It was a distant relationship over 300 miles, she in NYC and he was studying law at Penn State.
This gentle, intimate drama explores the ever changing nuances of family relationships blending a youthful sense of joy with an undercurrent of bittersweet nostalgia. The fact that Samantha followed Joan’s passion for the theatre illustrates how literary creativity has flowed through the bloodline. The question she has for Leonard is why was Joan unable to follow her dream as a writer. Sadly, for women of her generation, marriage and motherhood was a barrier for independent careers and artistic fulfilment. A wistful look in his eyes, Kevin Cahill plays Len with thoughtful, quiet emotion.
With delightful synchronicity, another more famous love story was being written in 1956 after the poets, Sylvia Plath to Ted Hughes met by chance at Cambridge University, leading to a whirlwind romance. When he returned home to Yorkshire in October 1956, still studying at Cambridge, Plath wrote daily letters to her “Dearest Teddy, describing the separation as “this huge whistling hole in my guts and heart. I keep pounding the streets, revisiting the places where we walked, and feeling these electric shocks of knowing how I miss you.’
October 18, 1956, Yorkshire
My Sylvia— Another delicious letter. I dreamed about you continually last night. We shall meet next week. All all all all all love, Your Ted.
Likewise, Joan and Leonard expressed such innocent, adoring affection in their letters and what a treasure of memories for Samantha to have uncovered to tell their stories. While this is an evocative, vivacious portrait of her grandparents through words, what is lacking in the play are visual images to bring them alive. Instead of vintage handwritten letters tied with ribbon, here Joan has A4 white paper. The flyer shows a delightfully happy photograph of the couple on a bike ride – perhaps this and other photographs, cine film, and the collection of letters could have been illustrated on a screen.
The flyer cleverly doubles as a postcard to encourage us to write a personal note to friends and family, connect, re-connect, share stories and show them we care.
“What a strange feeling you get wandering among old memories, suddenly re-immersed in the dimensions of a past you had forgotten existed.” — Joan, 1956
Show times:
1–23 August, 2025 (No shows Aug 10 & 17) @ 19:45–20:45
Tickets: £12 (£10)
Age guidance, 12+
https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/letters-to-joan