Steyning Drama Company explore "love in all its complexities"

They are staging LOVE/SICK by John Cariani at The Barn Theatre, Southwick, BN42 4TE from Thursday-Saturday, April 24-26, with tickets available on https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/whats-on/west-sussex/the-barn-theatre-southwick/love-sick/e-lkazza

Rula Kronda isn't just in the piece. She is also co-directing: “It's a vignette play. We have eight scenes all different but all centred around the theme of relationships and love. It's a dark comedy. Within every scene there are moments that are poignant but there are also moments that are laugh out loud. The really clever thing is that the play takes situations that you would really recognise, like love at first sight or pre-wedding jitters or adultery or meeting an old flame, but he elevates it into something almost surreal. You can relate to it but he really amplifies the situation.

“The first one is called Obsessive Impulsive which I am in, and it's about two people that have a really rare disorder and who meet by chance in a supermarket and find out that they both have the same disorder. They fall in love at first sight and it's about what happens when you can't control anything because they are so impulsive. A lot of the dialogue is spoken at the same time between the two characters. I've never played a character where you have to be so much in sync with someone else before! But it is great. We have been rehearsing for quite a few months now and we are still laughing out loud.

“There are about 12 of us in the group and in this we have got eight actors and there are just two people in each scene but because we are so small as a group, two of us are co-directing. I'm co-directing with Glenn Chubb. We are very collaborative as a group. Because we're so small we run a little bit differently to other local amdrams. We really work together to find plays that we can actually do.

“John Cariani is an American writer and he is best known for Almost, Maine, and we did look at that play first, but we didn't feel that it really fitted us so well. I found that he had written another play as well. It made us laugh at rehearsals and we thought that that was a good starting point.”

Rula has been with the company for three and a half years now: “I always did theatre when I was growing up. I was always part of theatre groups until I went to uni and so I made a promise to myself that when I settled down and when I could, I would find an amdram group. When I moved here I looked around and I found this group. I was very lucky that they met on a Tuesday because I could only do Tuesday because of other commitments. I joined and I have made a great bunch of friends and it's just a great outlet. It makes me happy. I'm not saying that I don't get nervous when you're standing in the wings but that's part of the thrill of it all, the nervous anticipation and then the sheer joy when all the work that you've put in comes to a head and then you are taking a bow.”