Trent Daltons’ Love Stories digs deep into the emotional core to reveal that the mystery of Love is greater than the mystery of Death.
That’s a celebrated quote from Oscar Wilde’s play Salome, and the title of a 1994 Jackie Leven album.
Trent Dalton is a well-regarded Australian journalist and novelist, and the genesis of this story starts with the gift of an Olivetti typewriter, which was bequeathed to him from the mother of a close friend, who passed away on Christmas day 2020.
Dalton is from Brisbane and living through the midst of pandemic mania, when he decided to set up that typewriter on the city streets and petition passers-by to give him their stories of love.
Remember this was a time of lockdowns, everyone confined to quarters, compulsory mask-wearing and social distancing. So, this could be seen as a very human act of rebellion or an attempt at an antidote to the enveloping madness.
Over several months he collected around 150 vignettes on the subject, which resulted in the best-selling book Love Stories.
Adapting these myriad portraits onto the stage to make a coherent production is quite a feat, written by Tim McGarry with additional input from the author Dalton and his wife Fiona Franzmann.
Entering the Civic tonight, we are met with a shot of the rapidly-filling ground floor, projected onto the huge cinema back screen, accompanied by short quotes on the definition of love, as submitted by the audience members on the Auckland Live website prior.
This threatens to get quite cheesy and sentimental, before the show has started. It does prime the audience to coax us into approaching a euphoric state.
From the front of house seats, we are greeted by Jean Benoir (Rashidi Edward), drumming on a large plastic bucket, like a street busker cum jester.
He provides some of the narrative link to the stories that are about to follow.
All the characters portrayed tonight are from the actual people that spoke to Dalton and gave him their stories. Benoir was a refugee, originally an orphan abandoned as a baby in Rwanda.
Immediately we are thrown into the innovative theatrical design of the show. There is a camera suspended at centre-stage. Benoir with his back to us, appears full-frontal on the backscreen with a huge grin on his face.
This central camera then projects the ensemble cast as they take to the stage. The fixed camera is augmented by a roving onstage cameraman.
This expands the stage immensely for a kaleidoscopic experience which brings the production to life.
The ensemble cast play multiple characters and continually morph into different characters.
There are two who are constant throughout. The writer or Husband (Jason Klarwein) and Wife (Anna McGahan).
Rapid dialogue and energetic choreography. The action is swift and quite seamless, which is a tribute to Director Sam Strong, and the work of the choreographer Nerida Matthaei.
Love stories inspire passions, obsessions, and often a little madness with the euphoria. Bawdy humour (a bag of cocks!) provide earthy circuit breakers. One of the funniest is the dominatrix couple with bondage and whips mimed.
Slowly the real emotional core creeps in.
There is one person who is given a pre-recorded cameo on the big screen. A middle-aged man of Aboriginal heritage. He outlines his difficult life as one of four children brought up by his solo mother, who herself endured domestic violence.
This was at a time when a lot of Aboriginal children were taken from their parents by social welfare authorities. He outlines the hardship his mother faced to raise her children. The story has a happy ending in that his mother later trained as a lawyer, whom he got to admit to the bar as a barrister, being a lawyer himself
We are plunged into the stark reality that love is endurance in the face of seemingly insurmountable adversity. There is no sense of bitterness from this man and his story.
Then the stories unfold of partners who have died and left behind their memories. Love is a mysterious binding force.
Inexorably the show gravitates to the central protagonists, Husband and Wife. The author and his partner.
The dissection of their relationship digs deep to uncover the nature of love at its essence. She questions why he is spending so much time asking strangers on the street on their love insights. He finally dredges up the courage to confront his behaviour.
This is not any easy thing to put into words. Hence it takes over an hour and a half to shine some light and clarity.
Love Stories does get to plumb the emotional depths, and it would be cold-hearted person indeed who would not be moved by it.
The presentation tonight ends on a joyous note, with the author Trent Dalton coming up on stage with the cast and some of the crew. To spread the message of the power of love and its inherent mystery.
Rev. Orange Peel
Trent Dalton’s Love Stories presented by Auckland Live to 19 October 2025. Tickets are available HERE.
Photos by Veronica McLaughlin
