Review: Harnessing the Piña Colada of relationships in 2 Lovers by Ter Hollmann

I saw 2 Lovers last night at Theatre Arts – 6pm on a Sunday in autumn in Cape Town is a terrific time to see a show.  The play is on at Theatre Arts for a short season. The last performance for this run at Theatre Arts is tonight, Monday April 28, 2025 at 7pm, so this is a quickie review.

2 Lovers is a bittersweet play with quirky characters looking for everlasting love. Energized performances by Terr Hollman and Tessa Jubber and wonderful direction by Craig Morris who wrings seamless changes in the narrative. I loved the miming of the doorbell for example. I also enjoyed the way the protagonists, Annabel and Dave reconfigure the set – from couch to bed and back to couch. They are constantly stripping the bed and making it up which is emblematic of this couple who don’t like so many aspects of each other and yet they click – until they don’t. They are in and out of love. The ecstasy and agony of their union plays out in the regretful past and the present of possibilities.

The play written by Hollman was a finalist in the Scribe Writing Competition (2017), run by How Now Brown Cow. It was staged at National Arts Festival in in 2023 and won an Ovation Award and has been staged at various venues and festivals. The performers live in Johannesburg and it is great to have them stage this acclaimed play in Cape Town.

I thoroughly enjoyed this wistful look at relationships and the desire to love and be loved. I would like the ending to be fleshed out more. It ends rather abruptly. I would have liked more. The takeaway for me is that we should endeavour to cherish what we have in life and love and not look somewhere else for something we imagine to be better. This is underpinned by the playing in the play, of instrumental refrains of The Piña Colada Song – aka Escape. The song written and performed by British-American singer-songwriter Rupert Holmes taken from his fifth studio album Partners in Crime (1979). In the song, two lovers who are bored with each other arrange to meet for an exciting hook-up.

“I didn’t think about my lady

I know that sounds kinda mean

But me and my old lady

Had fallen into the same old dull routine

So I wrote to the paper

Took out a personal ad”.

In the song, they arrive and are amazed to find each other at the hook-up. There is a rekindling of their relationship as they discover they both like the same things, even though they thought that they were bored with each other.  Watch and learn from Annabel and Dave in the charming 2 Lovers, an inspirational play to ignite us to love deeply and to not lose sight of having fun and harnessing our inner Piña Coladas.