If one were to peruse social media as this time of ‘social distancing’, one thread that surfaces periodically is how hard it is for single people who have no human contact. There is, however, one thing more hellish – recently splitting up with your boyfriend/girlffriend, but having to share the same living space…

Written by Katie Elin-Salt and directed by Hannah Noone, Love (and Loss) in the Time of Corona finds a young woman (Catrin Stewart) having to lay some ‘ground rules’ while she and her ex have to stay in the same premises. As she leaves her video message, practical logistics are considered such as where they sleep (bedroom versus sofa). But while they are ‘together’, they are bound to be constantly reminded of what they are both ‘not getting’, so allowances have to be made for ‘private time’ with no interuptions…

Having taken up residence in the living room, ‘She’ notices how while the layout is physically the same, everything is different – the absence of another person makes the living room colder at nght and the atmosphere is totally diiferent. Even the pictures of the former couple seem to belong to two different people, without a care in the world. Then it sinks in – this is what they’re leaving behind…

Within the brief span of the monologue, Stewart conveys the varied and conflicted emotions of the aftermath of a relationship. Still possessing feelings for her former partner, she’s unable to ‘move on’ while in limbo – their physical proximity creating a ‘Schrödinger’s cat’ relationship that is alive and dead at the same time…

© Michael Davis 2020

Love (and Loss) in the Time of Corona ran online as part of Sherman Theatre’s TEN initiative – plays written by a line-up of emerging and established Welsh and Wales-based writers. TEN is inspired by Papatango’s Isolated But Open programme. Love (and Loss) in the Time of Corona ran online from 1st to 8th May.

https://www.shermantheatre.co.uk/performance/interval/love-and-loss-corona/