The first draft of time, et. al. was written nearly four years ago, based on a short story Jennifer had written at the age of fifteen. The basics remain the same: a current-day man, a 1920s girl, their meetings in the other-worldly dreamspace that they share, and the triumph of their love over time.  But this first version remained too…happy.  It was dreadfully boring, so it was abandoned.  It wasn’t until seeing the 2006 Keanu Reaves film The Lakehouse that we realized what was wrong: in order to enjoy a time travel romance it is necessary to check one’s brain at the door.  Not even recasting Keanu could have saved such a terrible premise.

And The Lakehouse wasn’t the first such travesty.  The idea of TIME TRAVEL LOVE has been romanticized for far longer than the silver screen has been ruining it. The problem with even the best of these stories is that they feel dated, out of place, and far, far too idealized for a skeptical modern audience.  In short, it occurred to us that time travel romance doesn’t work.  Under the assumption that two people could communicate across the stretches of the space-time continuum, would they really find that they had anything in common?  Would the one to make the “time-jump” actually be able to acclimate to their new surroundings?  And with the divorce rate rising, who really wants to be shackled to someone who freaks out every time the alarm clock makes a funny sound?

In the end we decided to trash the original concept, take these characters who we had loved and grown with for almost half a decade, and destroy their lives completely.  The play presents the intersection of Love and Time Travel as it would actually happen in real life. If Time Travel existed.

Which it doesn’t.

We have simply seen way too many terrible, terrible instances of time travel combining with romance to create utter garbage: “The Lakehouse”, “Kate and Leopold”, Superman circling the earth backwards to save Lois Lane… time, et. al. is not that. We’re not claiming it’s not terrible, we’re not claiming it’s not utter garbage. But it’s honest.

May it serve as a warning to all those out there considering embarking on their own Time Travel Love.