Love You Approximately is a pleasing, slightly naïve theatre and film work dealing with distance relationships in the digital age.

Lara Fischel-Chisholm plays Imogen, a young New Zealander who has maintained connections via Facebook, Skype and mobile phone with Pere (Olmo Hildalgo-Solé) after a returning from Spain, where she had a one night stand with the charismatic young man.

It comes as no surprise to the audience, though it surprises Imogen, when Pere declares his love for her via computer. After initial fumbling, they adopt various strategies to establish their budding romance, including “virtual flatting”: where a live camera-and-audio-feed between their rooms is maintained via the computer.

The stage set up is relatively simple. A series of boxy frames are positioned before the audience and a scrim screen stretched across. Behind this rests Imogen’s actual material flat, complete with couch and a computer workspace. Projections of Pere, or of Facebook exchanges, either flank or cover her as she moves about behind, or as she comes through a slit in the screen to use a small area of the forestage.

At times, then, Fischel-Chisholm stands looking out to the audience whilst behind her plays the image of Pere to whom she is addressing her comments. Pleasantly mellifluous, light music occasionally enters the space, and intermittent animations, including one of umbrellas streaming across the set, appear from time to time. 

The story of Love You Approximately is as unadorned and basic as this stage set up, so the two largely support each other well. There are no lengthy digressions or poetic passages on the nature of separation or longing. Indeed, the performance is quite coy overall. Whilst there is a pointed mention at one time that the Spaniard likes to be “totally free” at home, we in fact never see either performer naked or engage in any sexual activity or sexual longing.

Given that Fischel-Chisholm is at times replaced by her projected filmic self on screen alongside Pere, and that both are sometimes represented by the various simplified symbols which appear on digital systems (smiley faces and the like), the tone remains almost cartoonish throughout. 

If one accepts these premises, Love You Approximately is a very pleasant ride. Nevertheless, the topic is hardly a new one, even for theatre (though possibly it is for New Zealand theatre; I am not qualified to determine this). The Builders Association, though, this is not.

The Fortune Studio space does not do them any favours either, with many seating places only giving one a distorted, side-on view of the proceedings rather than positioning one in front of the screens.

To my mind, the most interesting aspect of this production is the manipulation of space, the way in which two rooms become one in some sense. This is both conceptually fascinating and indeed precisely what theatre has always been about ever since the Ancient Greeks started using wings and ‘spaces-off’ in their performances. 

Relatively little is made of this though. One could for example follow groups like Company In Space and see if having Hildalgo-Solé perform live in real-time through an actual functioning Skype connection added new elements into the performance. If this is what is being attempted here though (the performance and the program notes are equivocal in this regard), it is not adequately foregrounded. Rather, such motifs creep into the margins of the performance, as when Pere replies to Imogen’s query of “What’s Barcelona like?” by gesturing about him, “Well, you can see.” Actually, all we see is a well lit room adorned with pot plants. The spatial and visual conundrums in such relations are manifold.

In short, there is much to like in this piece. The extremely simple resolution of the drama, whereby Pere flies to New Zealand and everyone lives happily ever after, is itself endearing. Nevertheless, a more sophisticated show could address these issues better, and although Facebook and electronic communication has done much to further a relentless exchange of banal discourse (as when the lovers discuss farts or blowing one’s nose), some serious work on either elevating the language of Love You Approximately, or making its pedestrian quality a more overt and critical part of the study, would not go amiss either.
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Leaving the play my group of 5 had very different opinions about this virtual long distance love story – one teen said that to have Skype running 24/7 in New Zealand would financially crippling, another was a bit squeamish about the romance, two adults were very taken with it, and the critic in the party found the use of new media intriguing – but was also disappointingly unmoved.

Imogen (Lara Fischel-Chisholm) is having a Facebook friendship with a Spaniard with whom she had a fling during her OE. Pere (Olmo Hidalgo-Solé), however, finds himself falling in love with her. Undaunted by the geographic separation, he finds enough of a connection using Skype and Facebook to keep them close.

They both become addicted to seeing each other’s image through their laptops, talking as they would if they were physically together. It really is a story for our times, with so much of our lives being lived and our communication done virtually.

It made me think of how my parents got to know each other as penfriends at opposite ends of the country, and that perhaps there is something to be said for getting to know each other before rushing into a relationship.

Pere is acted with great warmth and charm by the Spanish actor, especially considering we only know him on screen. He’s almost a saint while Imogen’s character needs more opportunities to show a more loving side. Fischel-Chisholm does a lot with what she is given, and it is a remarkable achievement given she is responding to screen images not flesh and blood. 

The director Julianne Eason works hard to ensure the technology of screens and film doesn’t overwhelm the sole actor on stage. Julian Southgate’s set is elegantly simple, though there are sight line issues if you sit far from the centre of the auditorium. By the end though, this feels more like you’re watching a movie than a play. 
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While Love makes the world go round even in the digital age, its path still does not run smooth in the Mills and Boonish, light-as-air romance Love You Approximately because Imogen is in Christchurch and Pere is in Barcelona though they had met in Spain when Imogen was there on holiday.

Love You Approximately is a joint production by The Clinic, which initiated the project, in Christchurch and La Merce, a cultural centre in Girona , Spain . Unfortunately neither the seductive charm of Olmo Hidalgo-Sole as Pere nor the down-to-earth Kiwiness of Lara Fischel-Chisholm nor the barrage of technological effects can overcome the hackneyed situations and the pedestrian dialogue.
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Love in the time of computers is a complex thing.  Courtship via digital media has different tactics, modes and stages than the more traditional romance. Similarly, theatre in the age of computers is a new kind of beast.  It is a challenge to contemporary artists – can you marry the markers of the modern age (emails, texts, Skype etc) with the classic fare of theatre, a human body performing live in front of others?

It is this challenge that has resulted in Love You Approximately, a collaborative work between the clinic, a Christchurch based theatre company with an interest in multimedia performance, and La Merce cultural centre in Girona, Spain.  Content-wise, the play deals with the subject of digital romance, and theatrically it embraces the difficulties of merging contemporary technology with live performance. Two creative teams on different sides of the world have come together in an impressive creative collaboration, the performances largely devised via Skype and rehearsed together over the internet.

The premise is this: Imogen the Kiwi girl (Lara Fischel-Chisholm) and Pere the Spanish boy (Olmo Hidalgo-Solé) hooked up at a barbecue while Imogen was on her OE.  Once she’s back in New Zealand she sends him a cutesy birthday message. He Skypes her to thank her.  Their relationship progresses, they decide to become ‘virtual flatmates’ eg have their Skype permanently on to each other (which made me very concerned about the size of their internet bills) and… I don’t want to give anything away here but…they kind of fall for each other! And then they have to struggle with the problems of long distance relationships!

The story is so simple it borders on dull, and the concept of Skype conversations and the interplay of AV and actor soon loses its novelty. Luckily Fischel-Chisholm and Hidalgo-Solé give detailed and nuanced performances and do an excellent job of portraying the gauche earnestness that characterises the beginning of any relationship. Fischel-Chisholm in particular has a tough job as she is actually there on stage and has the difficult task of pulling together the various strands of filmed sequences, ‘Skype’ sequences and animations in order to anchor these multiple strands into some human drama.

That this is not altogether successful is not through a fault in performance, but more to do with the script itself. I know that Skype conversations are awkward and stilted and often a bit pixelated, but these guys’ conversations, apart from a few stand out moments (“gunked up”) were boring.  I cannot help thinking the show would benefit from losing ten minutes of awkward pauses and repetitions.

Also, the ending felt somewhat anticlimactic.  I wanted to see two humans on the stage. The play suggested, both through the storyline and through the tensions created by the multimedia, that that was the reveal that was coming.

I don’t know if the marriage of technology and live theatre was perfect– but Love You Approximately is a sweet love story featuring two beautiful performances. Take someone on a date.

PS– I was seated between two people who had not brought their glasses and they couldn’t read any of the text messages or emails projected up onto the set. This presented a barrier to their enjoyment and understanding. So, warning to all, BRING YOUR GLASSES!
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The clinic has established a strong reputation for multi-media work , blending live performance with video projection to set up a new threshold for disbelief.  The live performer in this long- distance romance story is hardly seen in the actual flesh but with such candid and intimate screen work that does not seem to matter.

The clinic in action is proof that there is no limit to creative collaboration. This piece blends film from Spain and New Zealand, the live performer at CoCA and liberal use of webcam, e-mail and texting to advance the story. Scriptwriter Lucette Hindin and director Julieanne Eason have achieved a meticulous composite.

The story itself is a simple one of a blossoming love affair which develops from Kiwi Imogen’s OE fling. Pere is in Spain, Imogen is back home and we are in the living rooms of both by virtue of the various screens making up the set. We track through tentative initial encounters to virtual flat-mate status and on to increasingly serious conversations before the leap of faith that resolves all doubt, for in the face of love, technology proves both too much and too little.

The ‘playing’ is intimate without feeling voyeuristic, but once the screen involves family or friends, the information they bring feels surplus to requirements and interest in the essential relationship is diminished a little.

The constant switches from this screen to that, from this medium to the next and occasionally from on screen to live presence, require focused attention quite different from that we take for granted with conventional live performance.

The on-scrren actor Olmo Hidalgo, who plays Pere, and Lara Fischel-Chisholm as Imogen, are nevertheless, engaging and convincing in the everyday truthfulness of their interaction. Very rarely a cue seemed twitched out of alignment or a non sequitur skipped a beat, but the blend of media and the story it covers is a triumph of applied technology.

The clinic has done it again, redefining what the shared experience of theatre might involve. In this festival season their enterprise and skill are particularly welcome.
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