Play 14 - This Is Not a Love Story

(the amount, gender, age and race of performers is optional. Dumb show, music, costumes, extravaganza encouraged)

This is not a love story

It's not really a story

It just is

There are love stories to be told

Big brass ones where one lover kills the other over the death of their child

Or crude ones where one lover cheats on the other, no shame

Or ones where the guy gets the girl, loses the girl and wins the girl back

Or ones that are a bit more unconventional, usually pretty girl on pretty girl action because god forbid we have a non-male-gazed depiction of women or if it's gays one of them has AIDS and dies because god forbid we have a happy ending for the buggerers. 

Or the divorce love stories that tell us nothing ever truly dies, whilst depicting something very final, a death of sorts

Or the fling that wasn't meant to be story that tell us the right one will come along one day, whilst telling us that they might as easily pass you by

Or the single woman can find happiness for a bit but ultimately she's a lot happier if she's got a hunk on her arm stories because god forbid a woman is enough in herself

Or the bereavement love story, the story of loss that makes you cry

Or the one where they are actually much happier apart but never leave each other anyway

Or the one where they're together for the children

Or the fleeting moment story, the intense love that all other loves will be measured against but it actually only lasted a couple of days, or months but never years, it was too intense, burned too hot to last 

This is none of those

This is not even a story of the quiet kind of love, the kind that drapes blankets over sleeping partners or makes cups of tea in the morning

This isn't a story of friends who become lovers who become friends again and ultimately lose touch

This isn't a story where the girl likes Duran Duran and the guy likes Velvet Underground and they shouldn't work but somehow do for a while but ultimately not love but loneliness will tear them apart

This isn't a story of strangers meeting in a bar and finding themselves snogging in a car park at five in the morning

This isn't one where the guy asks the girl to marry him, drunk, behind a bar, with a key ring

This isn't a story where the woman puts up her glasses to take a better look at the man on the other side of the bar

This story has no bars

This isn't one where the girl gets to be girly and obsessive

This isn't one where the guy gets to be mysterious and aloof

There will be no passionate kisses in the rain

There will be no hotel rooms full of sex

There might be a slight squeeze of an upper arm or a reassuring smile somewhere

But you wouldn't call it a love story

It's more of a ...

What would you call it?

What is it called when people just are as they are around each other? 

What genre is a story filled with trust and understanding? 

What would you say two family members just being quite pleasant with each other would be dramatized as?

What is a story filled with one doing the dishes when the other one is exhausted and hangry?

What is a story when the guy fucks up but she lets it slide, not because she's sub-servant but because she knows she fucks up loads too and they've learnt to pick their battles? 

What's that? 

Because love is dramatic, isn't it?

Love is big musical numbers and ugly tears

Love is picking at the scabs and bubbling with jealousy

Love is when a boy hurts a girl on a playground 'because boys will be boys'

Love is a getaway wedding, something hidden from society, something very private and full of lust

Love is a glorified moment in time, unsustainable

Love is a word we use to describe something we've seen in the movies

Love is also a word we use when talking about our grandparents

So what is a love story then? 

A love story is a fiction

A love story is a breath

A love story is everything we say to everyone we know

But this isn't a love story

This is just...

​What would you call it?