On March 8th, 2020 I went to see. Love Quest was written by Mary Maguire and Steven McGraw. This romantic comedy is about the journeys of two women, Kate Crawford and Brook Davis, in the perilous world of online dating. The Theatre Jax cast includes Sarah Boone (Kate), Anna Hobbs (Meagan), Sara Beth Gerard (Brook), Jas Abramowitz (Everyman), John Glover (Hal), and Rich Pintello (Bové), all under the direction of Michelle Svenson Kindy. When I went to see this production the overall quality of the performance blew my mind away. In particular, the story behind the two main characters and how their stories intertwined made the production worth seeing.
I really enjoyed the portrayal of Kate Crawford by Sarah Boone. She played this character spot on with the description given in the playbill. Kate Crawford is recently divorced after a 30-year marriage. Left by her husband for a younger woman, she is dealing with issues of abandonment, ageing and the new world order of internet dating. Boone played this woman very stereotypically which made me and the rest of the audience laugh the entire time. Her physicality was the best out of the entire cast. For example, her physicality helped portray the serious issues she is personally dealing with as well as keeping her joyful and hysterical. The serious issues often involved the scenes with her daughter. During these scenes, she would almost lean onto the daughter and hold onto her as if she was leaving her like her husband did. For the parts that are comedic, she would use the old age side of her character physically.
For instance, in the scene where she was speed dating with this creepy man she hunched over, made it hard to breathe, and hacked up lots of saliva. This seems very ridiculous but this made it very funny and gave her partner in the scene lots to go off on. The same goes for the portrayal of Brook Davis by Sarah Beth Gerard. Her portrayal was also spot on with the description the playbill gave. Brook Davis is climbing the corporate ladder in the fashion industry with a driven, single minded focus. She has just won ‘The Emerging Designer of the Year’. Her ambition left her little time for socializing which is just fine with her. Gerard portrayed this character with lots of pride and independence. Her vocal delivery was the best thing out of her performance. She always mader the character sound like a strong and independent woman, so when the emotional scenes came out you could tell by the change in her voice.
For instance, in one of her scenes with the other main character, her voice made her start off as this confident character who didn’t need help from anyone, but then when she started to open up you heard a little crack in her voice which made her seem as this not so confident character as she seems. One of the best things in this performance was the chemistry between the main characters. It felt like a mother daughter bond between the two. Some moments Kate felt like the mother and in others Brook did. For instance anytime one was in need of a friend or advice after a date they would be there for one another. They made eachother laugh.
Also, they were a great pairing because when one went over the top on the physical side the other one balanced it so it wouldn’t seem over the top. One scene in particular, it felt that Kate was going over the top on her physical portrayal, so Brook counteracted her physicality with over the top vocals. And this might sound like it just made it worse, but this actually helped because once she went up there it made Kate realize the over the top feel and she brought her physical performance down a notch. In conclusion, Love Quest, was truly a great production to go see. It kept me entertained the whole time and I never felt a sense of boredom. The interaction between the two main characters and their individual portrayal was by far the reason why the show was so good. I never stopped laughing at the never ending jokes. And the jokes the writers used everyone in the audience got. I would highly recommend going and seeing this version of Love Quest.
