With its rapidly shifting scenes and characters, Love and Information by Caryl Churchill, explores contemporary human connection and communication in a society saturated with information.
For actor Emma Woods the biggest takeaway from Churchill’s insightful piece is that love wins, and real connection is what humans crave.
“We live in a society that takes most of our knowledge and indeed information from tech,” says Woods. “If we want to know how to bake a cake we ask the internet, if we want to meet someone we go online, we don’t buy physical newspapers anymore, we use an app. TV shows like Adolescence have really thrown this idea of how the online world can influence us out into the mainstream again so staging this work now is very timely.”
Eighty-six-year-old British playwright, Churchill is one of the world’s most influential playwrights yet, bewilderingly, her work is rarely staged in Australia.
Woods (also a Brit) says being able to perform in one of Churchill’s plays was a big bonus adding she also loves the way she writes.
“She writes characters that are real and raw and given the play has over 100 characters I knew this would be a rare chance to work in a hugely diverse and creative way. Churchill has left this script wide open so I was also very curious to see how our director Belle Hansen would tackle it!”
Woods opines that Churchill writes for actors explaining that she writes how people speak, “which might sound strange but that’s actually quite rare. She also manages to write scenes that initially seem quite simple but when you work on them you realise they can be set in multiple situations and said in many ways. Even now in the final days before we perform, I’m having light bulb moments with how lines could be said.”
The play consists of over 50 short, interconnected scenes and features over 100 unnamed characters. It also utilises a unique inclusion of seven sections of re-orderable scenes wherein scenes are reordered and lines redistributed with every show meaning no two performances are ever the same – making it practically impossible for audience to experience the same show twice.
Adds Woods, “Churchill also knows how to create a whole world in a very short space of time. Some of the heaviest scenes emotionally are only six lines long.”
With Churchill’s stunning literary mosaic, Woods would like it to remind people that humans thrive most in the here and now. With real connection, real friendships, real love.
Woods also wants the play to inspire the audience to look up and out. “If you go on a bus or a tram or are waiting at a train station, I bet you the vast majority of people will be plugged in to a phone or a laptop,” she says. “Everyone seems so detached and insular. Take the time to take in the world more.”
The work will be grand, musically driven and fast-paced, with few pauses and every moment is scored and sound tracked, much like cinema, ensuring there’s never a silent moment. Woods acknowledges the team is lucky to have a full original score created by Jack Burmeister going from the cinematic grandeur of Hans Zimmer all the way to Billy Joel-style storytelling using melody. “There is no silence for the whole 90 minutes which makes the whole play feel like a non-stop journey. It literally sweeps you along and creates some incredible atmospheric moments.”
Woods says this play is unlike any other job she’s ever done. She plays 14 characters – all of whom have their own world, their own backgrounds and their own trajectory that have got them to the moment you see on stage.
“It has certainly stretched my imagination and range as an actor,” Woods confesses. “I’ve loved watching fellow cast members bring their scenes to life and I’ve had so many “eureka” moments when they’ve nailed the lines or performances in ways I would never have thought of.”
Woods is a British actor, audio book narrator and voice over artist who gained a First-Class Honours degree in Acting at ArtsEd in London, one of the top UK drama schools. As a creative she describes herself as a real mixed bag. “I love comedy, the joy of hearing a line land and an audience responding in laughter is addictive. I love characters that are underdogs, and I enjoy working out how they manage their way through life in the face of adversity and how that might change them for better or worse.”
In this fast-moving kaleidoscope, over 100 spirited characters search for meaning in their lives. Through sex, death, feeling, taxidermy and karaoke they discover each other and couched within their whispers, exchanges, and revelations, we see ourselves and the people we love.
Says Woods, ” Love and Information is unlike anything you will have seen before. You will laugh out loud and quietly have your heart broken, you will love some characters and really dislike others. There will be awkward moments you’ll wish would stop and scenes you’ll want to continue for the rest of the play. It is, I believe, a love letter to live theatre.”
May 29 – June 14
www.theatreworks.org.au/2025/love-and-information
