Theatre Review: Lila Angher’s Almost L***

Theatre Review: Lila Angher’s Almost L***

A St. Andrews Student Written Mermaids Production

12/10/25-13/10/25

Directed by Lila Angher

Produced by Eilidh Reed

Review by Cecelia Allentuck

Almost Love is an original play written by Lila Angher that follows the bureaucratic timeline of heartbreak. In this 40 minute play, we see the short-lived “situationship” of Rosalie and Alfie unfold and devolve into a long-lasting heartbreak, alongside tales of friendship, fears of commitment and abandonment, all while hugging tight to the inner child inside of all of us.

Lila’s entanglement of bureaucratic affairs with something as versatile and flimsy as romance not only satirizes contemporary love “things,” but reveals a deep truth about the fear of never finding oneself, augmented by the materialistic affect of bureaucratic love.

Initially, the play feels like a comedy - with silly dance videos, sarcastic characters, and a depiction of heartbreak through the lens of contemporary “situationships.” Rosalie is first seen completing her application for heartbreak reparations, giving the audience a glance into the relationship that is about to unfold through a series of “Case Studies,” for when her application is rejected, she feels it is only appropriate to appeal this resolution because she needs proof that “it mattered.”

Within the case studies, we see Alfie and her meet and their love develop. Lila not only manages the unbearable task of writing a romance that feels awkward and silly while deep and real, but she excels in it. For every scene that Alfie and Rosalie sit in uncomfortable silence, laugh at cringey lines, or share a sweet moment, the audience feels connected to them. Underlying this connection, however, is the bittersweet knowledge that it is going to end. In her writing, then, Lila is able to provoke questions about love and elicit both the emotional high of falling, and the inevitable doom of failing.

The staging and tech, as well, brings these feelings to the forefront. While the quiet set changes between scenes could have felt long and detached from the show, in Almost Love, they pull the audience member into the play itself, as though we too are waiting in line to show all of our most vulnerable parts on paper just for them to be denied.

This bureaucratic essence is the foundation of which the show lays that ties well with the contemporary love story. On the screen throughout the show, notations about Rosalie’s story are made, minimizing her grand feelings to a case study with classifications rather than affirmations to how she is feeling. Meanwhile, on stage, Rosalie portrays a range of emotions from happy in love to confused in love to desperate in love to sad in heartbreak and, most importantly, deluded in love. 

From the initial meeting, the audience knows of her delusions, but can see also through the labeling of a “situationship,” the friend group deciding on text messages, and the end of her delusion represented in the emergency drill.

Lila thus mirrors a modern day society that reveals a lack of commitment while also emphasizing a fear of being alone through the romanticization of relationships. Dialogues between Rosalie and her friends, and Rosalie and the Bureaucrat, ensure that the audience knows she is deluded. It was only a two and a half week love “thing,” after all. However, even with the satirical elements, the audience can’t help but sympathize with Rosalie, feeling that she has every right to be upset and wanting her to get those heartbreak reparations!

This balance between delusion and love is thus broken when the emergency alarms go off and Rosalie must feel the full realness of the relationship. Thus appears her fear of committing and the internal child becoming external. While they first met in the context of a therapy art class, meant to heal their inner child, the value of creating art as emotional support is overtaken by this bureaucratic materialism that is embodied in Rosalie’s need of “proof” for their relationship. She asks Alfie for hickeys to create damage externally in the form of lust rather than looking inward at what needs healing and nurturing. Rosalie appears as a girl lost both within herself and the world balances between a deep vulnerability and the awkward ‘pushing aside’ of feelings, as the bureaucracy demands.

In the end, she is tested for a true heart condition and comes up clean. However, as she is tested medically, she loses all physical proof of her love while her hickeys are being wiped away. By outwardly removing the physicality of her heartbreak, Lila reveals that it isn’t the love she loses that is destroying her, but the lack of love for herself. Even as she begins to feel better and leaves, however, she is confronted with a saddened Alfie whose application was accepted. In this moment, Lila twists the knife just a bit deeper into the audience, having already broken the fourth wall, and really makes us understand this girl who just wants to look within herself and find love in a world where everything must be proven in material. 

In this portrayal of a modern day love story, Lila’s craft enables the audience to both laugh at Rosalie’s delusions and Alfie’s rough attempts at flirting, but resonate deeply with the vulnerability of want, of love, and of losing yourself in another. The crew and tech manage to flip between stoic bureaucracy and yet remain the silliness of a rom-com with set changes that involve dramatic singing and upholding the values of a love-stained bureaucracy. Even the side-characters, who name themselves as such, are written and portrayed with multiple layers that touch upon the strength of friendships that can hug you when you're down but smack the deluded sadness out of you.

These characters are played with a satisfying ease, remaining supportive of their good friend but never letting go of their own personal universes. Alfie is viewed through the lens of the protagonist, and therefore possibly misconstrued as a sideline personality, and make an awkward, charming guy who is just looking for love. We take both his missteps and wins as our own, feeling inclined to wonder how things could go so wrong between him and Rosalie. And the Bureaucrat personifies the harsh ways we speak to our own selves with a balance between apathy and rage. Both the costume and body language contribute to a larger-than-life character who fully embodies the connection between frustrations with bureaucratic environments and love stories; her facial expressions and use of space create an illusion of an over-bearing, all-powered figure of authority.

Ultimately, Lila has written and directed a show that makes you think about the complexities of modern love in all its mystery: is it just worshipped for the idea of being in love; is it fleeting; is it ever truly real? The play also explores how love can stop us from finding ourselves  - or even our personal lack of self love restricts our capacity of romantic love. These are questions that Lila provokes in her witty, yet honest, writing in an inspired and immersive tableau of creation.