LOL: Burton Taylor Studio (From The Oxford Times)

LOL: Burton Taylor Studio

4:03pm Wednesday 14th April 2010 in

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LOL is the second of two plays being showcased by Ros Adler at Oxfringe. Her first, Jubilate, has been well received and this story of the snags that accompany Internet dating, deserves a similar reception. This one-woman show has Adler playing three women, one a married home worker, another a promiscuous career woman and the third a hopeless bookworm. Seeing the same woman as each character is a little difficult to get used to, but it’s a credit to Adler that you forget quickly each time and assimilate the costume changes.

Infidelity and deception are well mined theatrical topics, but Adler’s script gives each character a tangible vulnerability and spreads a real sadness over the studio, with empathy for each one exuding from every audience member. The loneliness of trawling through websites, the sordid late-night encounters and the endless soul-searching are all laid bare, with no pre-determined judgement displayed. As the narrative develops and the woman’s stories become intertwined, Adler does a good job of creating a suspenseful build up, even though we know from the outset that the characters can never meet.

The biggest, and really only let down of this play is its name. LOL makes this sound like a grumpy critique of pre-pubescent texting habits and detracts from what it really is, which is a smartly written, well-crafted play on the difficulty of finding love in middle age.