The intimacy of listening to the voices of individuals’ emotional grist, concern and vibrance through letters written to a secret confidante is delicious and stirring in this time of 140 characters where “brevity is often not the soul of wit.” Irish Repertory Theatre’s “Letters Series” portrays the profound, intimate relationship between two individuals not “visible” to the naked eye of friends and relatives, and sometimes not gleaned by the characters themselves until it is too late.

The first series, now ended, starred Melissa Errico and David Staller in Jerome Kilty’s play Dear Liar. Kilty reconfigured his play from the decades-long epistolary relationship between George Bernard Shaw and the actress, Mrs. Patrick Campbell. The second part of the series highlights Matthew Broderick and Laura Benanti in A.R. Gurney’s (Pulitzer Prize finalist for Drama) Love Letters, directed by Ciarán O’Reilly. The staged reading of the drama with prodigious comedic elements runs with one intermission on the Irish Repertory Theatre’s Francis J. Greenburger Mainstage and concludes on the 9th of June.

Gurney’s two-act play explores the arc of the decades long relationship between friends and eventual lovers, Andrew Makepeace Ladd III (played by the inimitable Matthew Broderick) and Melissa Gardner (Laura Benanti is fresh, witty, humorous). These individuals write letters to each other over a span of decades (1937-1985), beginning in the second grade when Mrs. Gardner sends Andy an invitation to Melissa’s birthday party, and Andy responds to Melissa accepting the invitation.

From then on the the individuals share a profound written correspondence, though Melissa tells Andy to stop writing to her initially and at various times during their lives. At first, it is because she prefers pictures to words. Afterwards, it is because the words are so heartfelt and searingly directed to her, they are breathtaking to process and conflict with her estimation of Andy when they meet in person.

Oftentimes, reverse psychology is at work in Gurney’s pla,y where subtext and undercurrent in the dialogue between the characters takes precedence. The characters are confessional, argumentative, challenging, and interested in each other as friends, though there is always the sense that their concern for each other, authenticity and the bond formed through words reveal theirs is not an ordinary friendship, but one of the most sincere, transcendent and special that love might bring, even though it is not formalized in marriage.

Gurney intimates the possibility that their feelings have the potential for intimacy with their child-like innocent abandon (in 2nd grade), when Andy asks if Melissa will be his valentine, and Melissa agrees that she will, if she doesn’t have to kiss Andy. The verbal affection continues when we learn that Andy repeatedly asks Melissa to marry him. She gets him to stop, by telling him she will go with him to get the milk and cookies for the class, if he stops proposing to her. When Melissa employs her skills drawing, which she enjoys doing, she draws pictures of them without their bathing suits on, asks if he knows which one he is, then importunes him not to tell anyone about her drawing. She concludes by telling him she loves him.

This thrust and parry structurally mirrors the pattern of their relationship. Andy initiates his desire to be close to her. Melissa avoids responding, then eventually comes around to agree with him. Then, something intervenes and prevents them from actually becoming boyfriend and girlfriend or partners. When they finally try to extend their relationship beyond the intimacy of their writings and meet “live” for a weekend at the Harvard/Yale game, their date, including sexual coupling explodes in their faces. There is more “aliveness” in their writing, than in their ability to regain the soulfulness of their correspondence face to face. It will take other circumstances to transpire in Act II before any meaningful physical coupling occurs.

Ironically, despite their union and knowledge of each other that they’ve gleaned over the years and expressed in writing in the comfort of their surroundings, confronting each other in their “real” identities is problematic. Or perhaps the mental/spiritual connection through letters is their real identity.

Their written consciousness is a mystery. As Andy attempts to rationalize why their intimacy backfired when they met in person, Melissa blames the letter writing and suggests Andy phone her. However, this doesn’t work out and Melissa becomes infuriated with Andy when she hears he is writing letters to someone else, because he has fallen in love with the words coming out of his soul. Through their correspondence, he has discovered that he is compelled to write letters to “someone” to better know himself.

Andy’s love of writing and expressing himself to Melissa who listens and responds to him throughout elementary school, high school, college, the Navy and their travel to various places on the globe manifests in his career as a lawyer. Melissa’s drawing talents, that she initially felt comfortable to share with Andy, burgeon into a full-blown career as a professional artist who exhibits in New York City. Their epistolary relationship reveals a love, honesty and encouragement unlike that found in their other relationships. However, whether Melissa can bear continuing the writing when she dislikes it and believes it is keeping them apart physically gives both of them pause. Andy suggests that he hopes they can work it out and keep writing.

The suspense whether or not they will ever “get together” in a lasting marriage carries into Act II. However, by then, both end up with other individuals. Again, something intervenes to keep their love distant and unfulfilled. Every time Andy asks if Melissa is OK, she provides a “stiff up lip” response that she is “fine,” though we know she is not. Likewise, Andy never goes beyond his father’s folkways (family country, himself) which Melissa proclaimed was stifling him when they were teenagers. Following his father’s dictum, Andy fulfills his obligations to his family, country and himself sacrificially.

Though he and Melissa fulfill their love which blossoms, unlike that which they experience with others, Andy eventually falls back on his father’s belief, uplifting the traditional sacrifice of his own happiness. His choice to put his own desires last has disastrous consequences for both of them, only realized too late.

Broderick and Benanti bring their own unique talents and personalities portraying Andy and Melissa. Shepherded by O’Reilly, they strike the right tonal notes and pacing to engage us. We become involved in these two individuals to care about them and take the journey of life through elementary school, private high schools, college, careers and marriages to other individuals, all the while reading the sub rosa signs that they mean so much to each other and missed their destiny by never marrying and having children. Thus, the tragedy of the ending is all the more greater.

Throughout, Gurney’s clever dialogue, wit and fervor crafts individuals that Broderick and Benanti solidly inhabit to make them believable to us. From halting, shy children who are obligated by their parents to write birthday thank yous to hardened adults who have veered off their truth and empowerment, we accept all, even the abrupt conclusion which belies their soulful devastation leaving Andy to pick up the pieces.

The importance of this two-hander’s themes about human nature, love, cultural influences and the power of intimacy in correspondence lies in Gurney’s characters as they age. Andy and Melissa perceive each other’s identities and ethos first as innocent, frank children. As the corrupted environments harden them, they push each other away. The irony is that they are the only individuals that truly matter to each other in their lives as adults.

That Gurney has selected individuals who are upper middle class and are white, Protestant and privileged is telling. To a large extent it is their background folkways and traditions that Melissa rebels against and Andy adheres to that walls them off from each other. In their heart of hearts they are soul mates which Andy expresses and Melissa acknowledges, though they are incapable of taking the plunge to overthrow the strictures that bind them.

That Gurney in his notes wisely instructs the minimalism of sets (a table and two chairs facing out to the audience), simple lighting and reduced theatricality enhances the dialogue and focuses our attention on realizing the humanity of these two lovers traveling their destiny together in written words.

Broderick portrays Andy with unaffecting humor which allows Gurney’s ironies to be revealed all the more quickly. Benanti is sardonic and edgy with rebellion that is balanced just enough so as not to be curdling or understated. Both hit the mark to tease out their characters with a poignancy and grace that reminds us that love requited but not fulfilled is its own tragedy. In this staged reading we understand Gurney’s emphasis on the power of expression in a truthful exploration of relationships and love under the guidance and wisdom of director Ciarán O’Reilly.

For tickets to this fine staged reading with superb actors see below.

Love Letters