THE ROLLICKING CLICHES surrounding stories of love: love found, love cherished, love betrayed, love lost, is something central to who we are as human beings. So central that the idea might make you yawn a bit. The telling of tales of love have always begged for a mix of utter simplicity or spoof-laden cynicism, none of which escape the been-there-done-that syndrome. But Ter Hollmann’s work 2 Lovers, onstage at Theatre on the Square until this weekend, challenges most of those precepts.

It’s a bittersweet and weightless tale that takes you through the love affair between David (Hollmann) and Annabel (Tessa Jubber) with all the multiply-used bits and pieces tossed in on the side. But the thing that makes this little piece sing is two-fold. It’s about the dialogue and the presence of the performers.

All ears and hands, Hollmann is easy on the eye, but not in the conventional way. He’s you and me. The flawed everyman who is all too aware of his own imperfections. Jubber is an excellent foil to his ‘David’; as a couple, they do not sizzle though, and the work is not mushy or cutesy. Along the lines of Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years, which was performed at this theatre many years ago, it goes from the end of the connection to its beginnings.

But also, it evokes Attachments 1-7, a dance work created by Craig Morris, Athena Mazarakis and Gerard Bester nearly 20 years ago. That give and take, that yes and no between a couple of individuals who know themselves better than they recognise the entity of a couple, is a dynamic one that sparkles, only instead of choreographic maneuvre, these performers use words, crispy and light, idiosyncratic and poetic in unexpected ways.

It’s a work that may not change your life, but it is relatable and it will take you out of the stürm and drang in the rest of everything else, that we face all the time.

• 2 Lovers is written by Ter Hollmann and directed by Craig Morris. Performed by Tessa Jubber and Ter Hollmann, it is produced by Daphne Kuhn and stage managed by Regina Dube assisted by Melidah Thakadu, with technical management by Loftus Mohale assisted by Reggie Mathebe. It is onstage at Theatre on the Square in Sandton until 15 June 2024.