How do you get from Boston to London via Edinburgh, with a detour into a radio tower that doesn’t exist? Lover on the Radio, written and performed by Gayané Kaligian, takes us somewhere between the airwaves and the imagination. Its setting is the fictional Troika Communication Tower, where a woman works the night shift answering a series of telephone hotlines, while, somehow, holding down a DJ gig at the most eclectically playlist radio station on the planet. Amid a mess of 45s (for the sake of younger readers – a 45 is a round back thing with music on it), her callers seek companionship, romance, religious guidance, entertainment – and perhaps simply somebody who will listen. It is an intriguing premise, made all the more atmospheric (and profane) by its 10.20pm performance time.
The subterranean Vault could hardly be further removed from a communications tower reaching into the night sky. Four walls and a small performance space replace the imagined sweep of radio masts and transmission equipment. Fill in the blanks yourself – isn’t that what theatre does best? It takes us somewhere we’ve never been, using nothing more than a performer, a story and our own willingness to believe.
Kaligian is an intense and compelling actor, creating multiple personalities while somehow maintaining the sense that they are all facets of one woman. The callers may determine which version of her emerges, but each encounter reveals something about the person on the other end of the line.
The unseen callers are voiced by Kaligian’s friends and mentors – and she has assembled some striking voices. The effect is to make the audience construct characters we never see, filling in the gaps between what is said and what we imagine.
The fictional radio station, WTRX, is a nod to Kaligian’s childhood fascination with radio, but Lover on the Radio goes beyond nostalgia. It explores the curious intimacy of anonymous communication and the ways in which people reveal themselves to strangers while concealing themselves from those closest to them. The sound mix may exhibit some eccentricity, but believe me, there is plenty of revelation, whether heard clearly or not. Perhaps it encourages you to pay closer attention and that, dear caller, is your part in the play.
There are moments when you wonder whether the characters are shades of Kaligian herself. Her central protagonist seems more knowing and wise than she ever allows her callers to discover. Perhaps that is the play’s quietest observation. We can only ever really know what another chooses to reveal.
Kaligian may spend an hour inhabiting multiple personalities on stage, but when she steps out of them she proves equally engaging: articulate, erudite and thoughtful. Lover on the Radio may have some rough edges, but it is an intimate, imaginative piece of new writing that rewards the late-night listener – and leaves you wondering who, exactly, is listening to whom. See it before it’s a polished diamond tracing the spiral scratch on those 45s.
