'Love Letters' Starring Harris Yulin and Mercedes Ruehl Plays At The Suffolk Theater On July 9

Note: Sunday, July 10 performance is cancelled.

“Love Letters,” a play by A. R. Gurney, is one that offers audiences insight into an enduring friendship. Told through a series of letters between Andrew Makepeace Ladd III and Melissa Gardner, the play follows the lives of the two soulmates over the course of 50 years.

On July 9 and 10, “Love Letters” will be presented at Suffolk Theater in Riverhead. The production, which stars Academy Award-winning actress Mercedes Ruehl as Melissa Gardner and Harris Yulin in the role of Andrew Makepeace Ladd III, is directed by Yulin and produced by Josh Gladstone, the longtime artistic director of Guild Hall’s John Drew Theater in East Hampton.

This presentation of a staged play represents a new kind of performance for Suffolk Theater, with the unique opportunity created by the theater’s executive director Gary Hygom, a former a producer and set designer at Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor.

​“I am thrilled to welcome in this production and have the opportunity to present these renowned artists on our stage,” said Hygom.“This show will stand out as something really new and different for our audiences; and as a performing arts center, it’s imperative that we present a variety of performances and be a home for high-caliber entertainment that appeals to all different people. This will really be an unforgettable one.”

“Love Letters,” published in 1989, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, though Gurney had originally written the play as a novella, submitting it to The New Yorker for publication, according to Ruehl. But the magazine rejected it, saying it was a play and after Gurney presented it as such, it became very popular.

“It strikes to the heart of love and missed opportunities and human relationships that run the course of a lifetime,” said Gladstone. “It’s a great night in the theater.”

Andrew Makepeace Ladd III, Yulin’s character, is an attorney while Melissa, Gardner, played by Ruehl, is an artist. The two are opposites that definitely attract.

“Love Letters” begins with a thank-you note written after a childhood birthday party and it progresses from post cards from summer camp to letters from boarding school to adult lives with marriage, children and divorce.

“This one is unique because it is not to be performed per say, it requires a slightly different technique to perform it,” said Ruehl noting that all of theater is meant to evoke emotion, adding, “The oldest rule of theater is the actor, the boards and the passion.”

The script is unusual because it is meant to be read without memorization, with very little stage direction or costuming required. The two actors do not even look at each other until the end of the play.

“The concentration is elsewhere,” Yulin explained. “It’s on the text, it’s on the words. And all that implies, all the emotions and feelings and history.”

Ruehl and Yulin, who both live on the East End, have worked together multiple times before, including in a performance of “Love Letters” presented last summer at the John Drew Theater. Gladstone, who was the artistic director at the theater until retiring last December, noted that Ruehl and Yulin’s genius and friendship makes the play really work.

“Once you have performed it a couple of times you really want to have it again,” said Ruehl, who won her Academy Award for the film “The Fisher King” and is well known for her work on Broadway where she won a Tony Award for her performance in “Lost in Yonkers.” She also received Tony nominations for her work in “Who is Syliva?” and “The Shadow Box.”

Yulin has had a long career on stage and screen, and recently appeared as the character Buddy in the Netflix series “Ozark,” among over a hundred other film and television roles, in addition to performances on Broadway and theaters internationally.

“We have become an acting partnership out here. He is a terrific, really extraordinary actor,” Ruehl said of her “Love Letters” co-star. “We just get on each other’s wavelength very easily. It’s a great pleasure and relief to work with somebody that you harmonize with very well.”

Ruehl added that she and Yulin have been focused on performing a two-hander every summer for the past few years.

“Working with her is always thrilling, revelatory,” added Yulin. “Working with her is always a surprise, a delight and more.”

Mercedes Ruehl and Harris Yulin star in A.R. Gurney’s “Love Letters,” at Suffolk Theater on Saturday, July 9, at 8 p.m. and Sunday, July 10, at 3 p.m. Tickets are $55 to $65 at suffolktheater.com. Suffolk Theater is at 118 East Main Street, Riverhead.