Honoring the tradition of Valentine’s Day in a not so traditional way: Review of Love and Information

Screenshot of UMD Theater’s Zoom performance of “Love and Information.” Photo by Izabella Zadra

In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, UMD’s theater department is putting on a performance of Caryl Churchill’s ‘Love and Information’—a show featuring an abundance of different characters representing love, loss and other relatable aspects of human life. 

Released in 2012, ‘Love and Information’ is the latest piece of work by Churchill who is known as being one of the best female playwrights of her time.  

The way Churchill has written the play is jaw-dropping; seven different chapters all filled with multiple storylines representing the divides of love and the information gained from real-life experiences. 

Not only does Churchill’s storytelling create something unique, but the actors brought her ideas to life creating an experience like no other. Throughout the show, there are over 100 characters represented; all were played among a cast of 12 students. 

Embodying one character and crafting them perfectly is its own talent, but having to do that for an abundance of characters on a broad spectrum is something really special. 

The one downfall of this play was the fact that it was on Zoom and the number of technical difficulties we are all too familiar with. Although there are no other options for the show to go on, there was a lot of glitching, lagging and video and audio difficulties.

A plus of having the play over Zoom is, hopefully, people will be able to open their eyes about how important the crew is for a show to go on whether it is online or in person.  Many people view the cast as the most important part, but in this case, without the crew, the cast wouldn’t have even been able to perform.

This was a wonderful performance not only in the spirit of Valentine’s Day but in the spirit of the world we are living in right now. Being able to see this production go on over Zoom was so inspirational; every piece of the puzzle needs to fit to create something beautiful, and every single piece fits just perfectly in ‘Love and Information.’ 

Love and Information will be playing virtually through Valentines Day weekend (Feb. 11-14) at 7:30 p.m. 

The show is approximately an hour and 40 minutes but through out-of-the-ordinary storytelling, strong acting, descriptive vignettes, and an amazing crew that made it all possible, it feels like the experience never ends.