Following a journey that began in 2018, story of life-altering change following a heart transplant, Lovesick, runs at the White Bear Theatre later this month. Time to book your tickets.
Georgina Barley‘s drama runs at the Kennington venue from 31 March to 4 April 2020.
“I didn’t ask for this feeling. It’s invasive, it’s infectious, I don’t want it there anymore, so I’m asking you – very politely – to medicate me.”
Sarah needed a heart transplant. Maggie was her surgeon. The operation ran smoothly, but there are now complications. A year into her recovery, Sarah is engaged to be married, and deeply and obsessively in love…just not with her fiancé. And when she confesses her strong feelings for Maggie, Sarah discovers there was another side to the transplant procedure – the story of her donor.
Lovesick is a journey of identity and metamorphosis. How to face death, and come out the other side. How to find your true self in a body with foreign parts. And how heartbreak and lovesickness – with no known cure – can make you grow.
Barley’s play began life in 2018, when a the first iteration was staged as part of the Cockpit Theatre’s In The Pound. Producer Maria Hildebrand was part of that staging, and co-produces Lovesick with Barley as they bring the play to the White Bear Theatre.
Barley, who also stars as Sarah, has previously appeared in Lazarus Theatre Company’s The Tempest and Lord of the Flies, and Cambridge Shakespeare Festival’s Macbeth and Cymbeline. Hildebrand, who also plays Maggie, boasts credits including The Secret Letters of Gertie & Hen (New Wimbledon Theatre) and Pericles (Cornucopia Theatre).
Lovesick cast
They are joined int he cast by Carleton Hobbs Award-winner Adam Fitzgerald, Lesley Ann Acheson (The Picture of Dorian Gray, King’s Head Theatre) and Reece Pantry, who recently starred in the Graeae production of One Under that toured in late 2019.
Lovesick is directed by Helen Tennison, who has worked site-specific productions of Dracula and Alice for Creation Theatre, Offie-nominated adaptations of Wuthering Heights, Sense and Sensibility and Fay Weldon’s Breakfast with Emma, and the Edinburgh Fringe First Winner Everything I See I Swallow.
The spring season at the White Bear Theatre is an eclectic bag of treats, including current hit revival Look Back in Anger, John Sinnott’s pie factory tale Baking Hot, double bill of plays about life, love and loss Gay Generations and dystopian tale set in the near future Rising Tide.
