Review: Dear Jack, Dear Louise (Arcola Theatre)

Review by Amelia Isaacs

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Ken Ludwig’s grandparents fell in love at the height of WWII, thousands of miles apart, connected only by letters. Currently making its UK debut at Arcola Theatre, Dear Jack, Dear Louise is inspired by those letters, bringing to life the real love story that came to be over thousands of letters written over the course of several years.

Louise, played brilliantly by Eva Feiler, is an exuberant, theatrically-inclined, aspiring Broadway actress. Feiler bounces through the show with energy and fizzes with passion, and it is no wonder Jack falls head over heels for her. From the moment she tells him she auditioned for music school with a wonky attempt at the high B flat in ‘Blow, Gabriel, Blow’ from Anything Goes,  a song I sang for my own Grade 8 singing exam, I was fully invested in her journey, both to falling in love with Jack and to the stage. Played by Preston Nyman, Jack is more regimented and formal, a US army captain and military doctor who begins the correspondence between the two on his father’s suggestion that they might like to “meet and get together in a social way”. 

I was apprehensive at first that the two-hander, epistolary format might feel limiting, but while the script starts quite rigidly with each character simply reading out their letter from their side of the stage and addressing each other formally by their last names, this quickly softens. The structure eases as the characters lean into each other. Miss Louise Rabiner quickly asks if they might be a little less formal and says she prefers to be called Louise, asking Jack’s preference in return. “I like to be called Jack,” he replies. Still in his army ways, though, he signs off, “Sincerely, Captain Jacob S Ludwig.” 

Throughout the show, we see Nyman’s shy, reserved Jack soften, coming out of his shell and even breaking the letter-writing tradition to send an urgent telegram. He has advice for her upcoming audition. He suggests she sing ‘It Had To Be You’ for the slow song and ‘For Me And My Gal’ for the fast song. She sings both and lands the part in a touring show.

After almost a year of correspondence, Jack finally manages to get permission for a four-day leave to visit Louise in New York. They arrange to have dinner, go to a show, Blythe Spirit, and, with some coaxing from Louise, go dancing. Unsurprisingly, they face some hurdles actually getting to the date and all does not go to plan, but Nyman and Feiler bounce seamlessly off each other despite rarely getting to interact with each other directly, save through one phone call.

Feiler, in particular, is infused with vivacious character, but Nyman has chances to show glimpses of Jack’s personality, especially in his letters to other people other than Louise. Perhaps he is holding back slightly with Louise for fear of offending her, though she assures him in the theatre, everyone is very comfortable with their bodies and says “the A word” all the time. She also expresses her frustration at their situation by writing “S word! S word! S word!”.

Directed by Simon Reade in a small studio theatre with minimal staging, Robert Innes-Hopkins’s design reflects the play’s focus on the letters themselves. Suspended above the stage are letters and telegrams, and the main staging is two writing desks. Jack’s is military green with a typewriter, gauze and a single photo frame. Louise sits in front of a makeshift dressing room of scattered clothes and shoes, a poster of Oklahoma! and a suitably theatrical pot of ink and a quill at the corner of Broadway and 42nd Street.

Occasional letters to and from other people flesh out the world beyond just Jack and Louise, but we really are drawn into their world, into the world of Ludwig’s grandparents. Somehow, against a backdrop of war and Jack’s role as a medic, there are moments of beautiful lightness that are genuinely funny, and the play is joyful and moving while never making light of the setting.

Knowing that the story is based on a true story lowers the stakes slightly, as we know that the two will meet eventually, but in some ways, this makes it all the more moving. The two really did fall in love over the course of years, solely through words and as an audience, we get to have a peek into their love story and get a glimpse of something heartwarmingly beautiful. I laughed, I cried, I gasped, and there were audible ‘awws’ heard throughout the unfurling of Jack and Louise’s love story.

Dear Jack, Dear Louise plays at the Arcola Theatre until 2nd May. Tickets are available from https://www.arcolatheatre.com/event/dear-jack-dear-louise/

Photos by Alex Brenner