Long Distance is a new play which explores intimacy and connection through a series of text messages.
A delicate and sorrowful eulogy to those ephemeral moments of wasted potential
This premise is as simple as the staging: in which two young queer men sit, stand and recline against nothing more than a black background and two red metal chairs. The stark emptiness is entirely apposite for a piece whose gaping silences scream for human touch in a world which both facilitates and destroys such brave new relationships.
Having met - the situation itself is somewhat muddy but seems to involve a conference - a tentative relationship is conducted almost solely through text messages which range from the banal to the awkward to the sexually frustrated.
The incompatibility of these two lonely souls is sensitively drawn from the start, and there is some lovely business involving choice and use of emojis as a courtship ritual. The script fizzes with longing and untapped potential: the lengthy silences speaking as loudly as the lively dialogue.
Jonathan Rubin is all wholesome smiles and inner sadness as an attractive and optimistic character we all root for to find the attachment he craves. His partner is slightly aloof: only recently out and with a scientific mind somewhat more literal than whimsical. This leads an audience towards a rather lopsided understanding of their connection: but perhaps this is the point.
Eli Zurovsky’s production is a delicate and sorrowful eulogy to those ephemeral moments of wasted potential destined to remain dusty memories.
