The Love of Jude
Iain Lynn
It takes all morning, but you’re finally there – the next family reunion. Generation-old internal politics, hidden snipes in every word, and the overwhelming pull of the familial.
If any of that sounds familiar then you will either love or despise The love of Jude, an uncomfortably accurate exploration of a family after the prodigal son has died. At just 30 minutes, The Love of Jude is on the shorter side, but it lasts long enough to peer inside the collapse of a family.
Jude has already died so here we see not a funeral, but a birthday celebration. Admittedly not much of a celebration, considering the birthday boy is no longer with us. What celebration remains is attended by Jude’s partner Oscar (Ben Clark), his brother (Katherine Grainge) and sister (Emma Hearn) with their partners (Luke Adams and Taylor Boonzaier) and children (Ava Kelly, Kilda Kennedy and Elena Kalenti) in tow, topped off by a broken mother (Alice Banks), a father (Oscar Cooper), and the father’s “friend from work” (Emilia Brooks). The whole cast should be celebrated as the ensemble they were, especially Lara Thain, a member of the production team who stepped in for Ava Kelly on Thursday night. They not only created a strong family unit, but one strong enough to fail.
The play is focused on just half an hour of their lives. It opens on a powerful silence as Jude’s Mother is alone with an image of her dead son, this revere is crushed by each party goer, each entering later and more chaotic than the last. We then see them sit down for a family lunch, ruddy faced opinions grow into full blown arguments, and before the oven can cool, we are again alone with Jude’s mother, the dust has settled, the family has not.
The staging reflected this unflinching focus on the family. A U-shaped table adorned with a framed photo of Jude, and chairs set out for lunch, this spartan approach afforded the actors our undivided attention. There was no unnecessary set decoration to distract from the heart of The Love of Jude: its writing. Whilst the play flowed naturally from start to finish, there is a particular interaction that epitomises the skill of Joseph Cohen’s writing, both in its subtle handling of a sensitive issue, and in its deeply uncomfortable familiarity.
Jude’s father, as some men of a certain age invariably do at any given opportunity, loudly expresses his opinion, specifically on how he wishes “men” would dress like “men”, with any that experiment he wonders “are they, y’know…”. This has extreme relevance to Jude’s own life, as we are told that Oscar, whose relation to Jude is not yet clarified, was Jude’s romantic partner. The way this is handled is a dream to watch, gone are the page long revelatory monologues of old; their relationship is a simple fact, Oscar and Jude were two people in a loving relationship. Making it all the harder to hear the father’s bigotry – this causes the beginning of the exodus, Oscar leaves the table, not to return.
From Oscar’s leaving, the family quickly deteriorates, marking a shift in the play. Up until this boiling point we have been treated to a slow rise in tension, each well-placed word seems only to make the situation worse. We begin to see these people are all going to explode into fury, bringing their family down with them. Oscar’s departure signals a spark that lights a powder keg years in the making.
The strength of the show undeniably stems from the first section of slow building tension, the explosion we had been waiting for seemed to lack the fire and vitriol you would expect from such old feuds as this family’s. But ultimately the play was short enough that any parts found wanting didn’t last long enough to for any real issue to be taken. The Love of Jude is the intimate portrayal of a family, struggling with the loss, and the ever presence, of the son, the brother, the lover, Jude.
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