Things We Do for Love (Things We Do for Love) Alan Ayckbourn wrote in 1997. The premiere was a success, people laughed and at the same time looked at the characters of the play as if in a mirror. It’s a story for adults about adults, naughty to say the least, sometimes drastic and wickedly funny. “The Sunday Times” considered it “a masterpiece of tragic comedy and comic tragedy…”, and the author himself says about it: “It is a play in which a passionate romance between two people destroys everything around them. In the name of love, “to do things you would never do for the sake of anything else; including betraying friends, lying and cheating. It amazes me that some of the worst human behavior is committed by those in love.”
The action takes place in London, and the heroes are the inhabitants of a Victorian tenement house. Three floors, people hungry for love and surprising twists of fate that change everything. The people in the drama are Barbara, who lives on the ground floor, her childhood friend Nikki and her fiancé Hamish, who want to temporarily move into the apartment upstairs, and Gilbert, a tenant from the basement. Nikki is naive and in love, Hamish is unfaithful, and Barbara is hungry for love. The characters’ fates become entangled, they are carried away by a whirlwind of passion. No one will emerge from this love storm unscathed. By the way, it will turn out that the boundaries and rules are fiction, and morality has become tired and fallen asleep.
Promotional material/photo Paulina Pander/Teatr 6.piêtro
Irrational brain and crazy love
Is love sometimes blind? Scientists think so. Research has shown that when a person is in love, the frontal cortex, i.e. the part of the brain that is responsible for, among others, for logical thinking, it turns off. Areas that control fear and negative emotions also remain dormant. Love puts us in rose-colored glasses and fuels our brains with dopamine, the “happiness hormone.”
The world of a person in love narrows down to the object of his or her feelings. Madness replaces sanity. “I love you madly, I don’t see a world outside of you, I can’t live without you” – whisper lips in love. It’s wonderful if the object of your desires is also in love. If not, suffering occurs.
What’s more, people are capable of almost anything out of love. Crime, crime, fraud, lies, self-denial – it happens. Everyone knows many examples from personal experience. And if he hasn’t seen or experienced anything like that in his life, he’s certainly read about it in books, watched it in the cinema or theater. Without love madness, there would simply be no art – literature, poetry, painting and music.
The gods were also crazy with love, let us remember, for example, what Zeus the Thunderer did when he fell in love with a nymph or a beautiful, though mortal, girl. He was not afraid of the anger of his wife, Hera. He followed the voice of love like a madman, oblivious to the consequences.
British dark humor by Alan Ayckbourn
You can talk about love in a tragic tone, but you can also see a comic charge in the blindness of love. This is what happens in the plays of the outstanding English playwright Alan Ayckbourn.
Promotional material/ photo: Paulina Pander/Teatr 6.piętro
Ayckbourn’s works are breaking records in popularity. They are universal, just like feelings are universal. From West End and Broadway theaters they traveled around the world. These are often pitch black comedies, showing characters in love and romantic situations that have a deeper meaning. The advantages of Ayckbourn’s playwriting are brilliant dialogues, expressive characters, sometimes subtle and sometimes explicit humor, and excellent observations taken from real life. The action of his plays most often takes place in London, but the events he describes can take place in any city.
The 6th Floor Theater invites you to an artistic discussion
Piece [Things We Do for] LOVE at the 6th Piêtro Theater is a concert for four actors. The stars appear: Anna Dereszowska, Joanna Liszowska, Marek Kalita and Les³aw ¯urek. It is directed by Eugeniusz Korin, a well-known and respected theater director and screenwriter who, together with Michał ¯ebrowski, has been running the 6.piêtro Theater since 2010. Eugeniusz Korin directed, among others, such stage hits as Niezwycy¿ony, Piękna Lucynda, ART and Bli¿ej.
[Things We Do for] LOVE is the third part of the stage triptych SEX/PŁEÆ/GENDER on the stage of the 6th Piętro Theater. The previous performances of the series are: Closer and educating Rita. The artists ask viewers fundamental questions. Without answers, it is difficult to live consciously: What does it mean to be a Woman? What does it mean to be a Man? What does being together mean for a man and a woman?
Musical setting [Things We Do for] LOVE are songs by the British band Muse, which operates on the border of alternative and progressive rock, combining classical music, funk and electronics.
Promotional material for the 6th Piętro Theater brand.
Source: Gazeta
Bruce is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment . He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
