Nicola Bartlett as Florence in Old Love.
Camera IconNicola Bartlett as Florence in Old Love. Credit: Supplied/Supplied

New theatre season opens with Old Love

Tanya MacNaughtonEastern Reporter

AUDIENCES will have their ideology challenged when theatre company The Last Great Hunt debuts playwright Chris Isaacs' new work Old Love at The Blue Room Theatre this week.

The first production for the venue's Season 1 program, Old Love examines the relationship between Florence and Rob, an ideal couple in so many ways despite the relationship taboo of her being twice his age.

Fremantle actor Nicola Bartlett signed up for the role of Florence after reading an early draft of the play.

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"It's an interesting set up, in that an older woman is having a relationship with someone who is half her age," Bartlett said.

"I couldn't really think of any plays like that, especially not that I had been in.

"There's a dynamic between the two of them as they have dinner with two of Rob's friends who are the same age as him, and all the potential issues in this modern culture are raised.

"It's ironic that people are living longer but you reach a certain age and it's like there's this used by date."

Bartlett said Florence was a fun character who had done everything expected of a woman of her generation (marriage, children) but was now living and loving her life without being driven by social constraints.

"These are horrifically politically correct times, certainly for someone who was young in the '70s," she said.

"It's interesting how much freedom we think we now have, but how little we actually have in the way we're supposed to behave and dress.

"And how the sexualisation of the young goes on and there is no place for the old who are expected to disappear in to villages or go on cruises.

"There is no place for intergenerational appreciation or learning and pleasure, not necessarily physical pleasure, but in this case, yes."

THE ESSENTIALS

What: Old Love

Where: The Blue Room Theatre, Northbridge

When: April 14 to May 2

Tickets: www.blueroom.org.au