Search

Saved articles

You have not yet added any article to your bookmarks!

Browse articles

GDPR Compliance

We use cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. By continuing to use our site, you accept our use of cookies, Privacy Policy, and Terms of Service.

Letters to Joan

 
Richard Beck Review by Richard Beck 3 Published: 17 Nov 2025 Barons Court Theatre Show Dates: 12 Nov 2025-15 Nov 2025

Samantha Streit is a New York-born, London-based actor and writer who has brought her two-person play, Letters to Joan, directed by Martavius Parrish, to Barons Court Theatre as part of the Voila! Festival.

It’s a delight to see characters and actors engage across a two-generation divide

It’s 1956 in Brooklyn. An aspiring playwright falls in love and begins to put pen to paper in what will become a series of exchanges running to hundreds of letters and cards. They are full of hopes and fears, ambitions and intentions, but above all they are outpourings of love and desire.

The play is inspired by the real love letters Streit's grandparents exchanged. Playing the role herself, she thinks back to the time when they were written and what they went through. As she reflects on their content, questions emerge to which she would love to know the answers. Then, as her Grandpa (Kevin Cahill) appears, an imaginary meeting between them takes place across time. Sitting in a local diner, she has the opportunity to piece together the contents of the letters and probe more deeply into what lay behind them and the love story that was complicated by depression and an unfulfilled dream.

Streit exudes enthusiasm, energy and a fervent enquiring mind that keeps pushing Grandpa to reveal more. Meanwhile, Cahill calmly and gently reveals how Lenny prefers to think about the small things that made life and their relationship so charming. It’s a delight to see characters and actors engage across a two-generation divide and in particular to witness Cahill’s seasoned performance.

In an age of emails, boxes of bound letters will no longer exist for future generations to devise works like this, which has a certain bygone charm to it and encourages young people to ask all they can of their older family members before it's too late.

It's an endearing piece that impacts some more than others in terms of family relationships, following your dreams and the passing of loved ones.

Related to this article:

Location:

Performances

The Blurb:

In 1956 Brooklyn, an aspiring playwright falls in love, her letters brimming with desire and ambition. Decades later, her granddaughter, a writer herself, uncovers them—tracing the arc of a love story cut short and a dream left unfinished. Between a Brooklyn summer alive with possibility and a present-day American diner steeped in nostalgia, past and present blur. She sits across from the man who once held her grandmother’s heart, wrestling with the choices that shaped two lives. Letters to Joan explores the dreams we chase, the ones we abandon, and the unshakable longing for the life that might have been.