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The Language Archive
George is a man consumed with preserving and documenting the dying languages of far-flung cultures. Closer to home, though, language is failing him. He doesn't know what to say to his wife, Mary, to keep her from leaving him, and he doesn't recognize the deep feelings that his lab assistant, Emma, has for him.
59 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews
June 3, 2013
It is a joke of a cliché to talk about the indefinable nature of love, but it is also obviously one of those things that is cliché for a reason. It is so mysterious how love can suddenly appear in our lives and then, just as suddenly, disappear. I am a big believer in accurately and honestly defining relationships according to what they are, not what we wish they would be, and so I might be even more baffled than the average person by the relationships around me. How do some people cultivate and maintain long-term love in their lives without even seeming to try? How do others live with people whom they hate and who hate them? How do people use the words of love to describe what looks like contempt or addiction to me? Language isn’t enough.
I have a friend playing the part of Emma in The Language Archive in Seattle, and she suggested a couple of us read it and talk about it, so I read it. And I really loved it. For me, it is about the indefinable nature of love, and, maybe obviously, about language – how language is too broad, and not broad enough, to describe what love is. Maybe it is more centrally about how love is always about communication. George communicates through the study of languages, but struggles to actually express any emotion. Mary communicates through bread. Alta and Resten save English for their fights and speak in their native language when talking of love. Emma struggles to communicate at all.
It is not a long play. Mary and George are married; Emma works with George at the Lanugage Archive. Alta and Resten are a couple that has been married for years, and they come in to the Language Archive to record their native language, which is dying. Mary leaves George, and Emma struggles to tell George she is in love with him.
The rest of what I’m going to talk about is a spoiler, but I’m not going to hide it because, even though it tells you some of how the play turns out, I don’t really think that ruins the play. I think the play stands alone, regardless of whether you know the ending.
So, Mary leaves George, which devastates him, but which the play makes pretty clear is a good choice. They have this conversation at one point where George says to Mary that her leaving means that their whole language is dead. He says that sometimes one of them could say, “Did you take the garbage out?” or something like that, and it could mean many different things from, “I’m really angry that you never do housework” to “I couldn’t live without you” and those types of varied meanings created their language. And he asks her if she knows what he means. She responds that she doesn’t and that she’s never known what he’s meant. She says, “Here, have this bread and you’ll understand,” and the bread is meaningless to him. I think it is a simple, but beautiful, way of showing that they’re wrong for each other, that they could never understand each other.
And then, Emma and George communicate perfectly, but Emma tells the audience in the end that George never falls in love with her. So, that is something I keep coming back to. What does it mean that George and Emma communicate perfectly and work together for years, but that he never loves her? How does she know that? Does he know that? Was he actually in love with Mary, as he says he is, when he couldn’t understand or communicate with her? How is that love? It would be simple if you could say, well, he wanted to have sex with Mary and not with Emma, ergo . . . but that obviously makes no sense for defining love either. So, I keep wondering, over and over, and thinking about the relationships of these couples and the non-fictional couples I know.
It seems to me that every relationship exists outside of the naming of it, even though naming it can cause the relationship to change. People can be committed to each other in some sort of eternal way without calling it marriage, and people can be married without any kind of love or commitment. People can love each other without ever naming it, and people can hate each other and call it love. Even though the naming of it interacts with the experience of the relationship, I don’t think it creates the relationship. But, I don’t know what creates or maintains a relationship, and the way the naming of it molds and bends the relationship itself is a mystery to me, too. I have known so many couples where the woman told the man they were in love, and he believed her, and so their love existed. That is a mystery to me.
Because Emma tells us that George never loves her, and she tells us believably, I do believe her, but I don’t understand. If he had said he loved her, would that have made it so? Because he said he loved Mary, did that make it so, even though he never really saw her? I can’t wrap my mind around those ideas.
There is that monologue Nick Cage delivers so beautifully in Moonstruck, here. The play put it into my head, and it is something I understand about the play and about love, and it is something I love about love. It is something about love that you can sink your teeth into. It goes like this:
“Loretta, I love you. Not like they told you love is, and I didn't know this either, but love don't make things nice - it ruins everything. It breaks your heart. It makes things a mess. We aren't here to make things perfect. The snowflakes are perfect. The stars are perfect. Not us. Not us! We are here to ruin ourselves and to break our hearts and love the wrong people and die. The storybooks are bullshit. Now I want you to come upstairs with me and get in my bed!”
Maybe George just needed to hear a speech like that, and he would have snapped out of it. Maybe not, though; I have no idea.
I have a friend playing the part of Emma in The Language Archive in Seattle, and she suggested a couple of us read it and talk about it, so I read it. And I really loved it. For me, it is about the indefinable nature of love, and, maybe obviously, about language – how language is too broad, and not broad enough, to describe what love is. Maybe it is more centrally about how love is always about communication. George communicates through the study of languages, but struggles to actually express any emotion. Mary communicates through bread. Alta and Resten save English for their fights and speak in their native language when talking of love. Emma struggles to communicate at all.
It is not a long play. Mary and George are married; Emma works with George at the Lanugage Archive. Alta and Resten are a couple that has been married for years, and they come in to the Language Archive to record their native language, which is dying. Mary leaves George, and Emma struggles to tell George she is in love with him.
The rest of what I’m going to talk about is a spoiler, but I’m not going to hide it because, even though it tells you some of how the play turns out, I don’t really think that ruins the play. I think the play stands alone, regardless of whether you know the ending.
So, Mary leaves George, which devastates him, but which the play makes pretty clear is a good choice. They have this conversation at one point where George says to Mary that her leaving means that their whole language is dead. He says that sometimes one of them could say, “Did you take the garbage out?” or something like that, and it could mean many different things from, “I’m really angry that you never do housework” to “I couldn’t live without you” and those types of varied meanings created their language. And he asks her if she knows what he means. She responds that she doesn’t and that she’s never known what he’s meant. She says, “Here, have this bread and you’ll understand,” and the bread is meaningless to him. I think it is a simple, but beautiful, way of showing that they’re wrong for each other, that they could never understand each other.
And then, Emma and George communicate perfectly, but Emma tells the audience in the end that George never falls in love with her. So, that is something I keep coming back to. What does it mean that George and Emma communicate perfectly and work together for years, but that he never loves her? How does she know that? Does he know that? Was he actually in love with Mary, as he says he is, when he couldn’t understand or communicate with her? How is that love? It would be simple if you could say, well, he wanted to have sex with Mary and not with Emma, ergo . . . but that obviously makes no sense for defining love either. So, I keep wondering, over and over, and thinking about the relationships of these couples and the non-fictional couples I know.
It seems to me that every relationship exists outside of the naming of it, even though naming it can cause the relationship to change. People can be committed to each other in some sort of eternal way without calling it marriage, and people can be married without any kind of love or commitment. People can love each other without ever naming it, and people can hate each other and call it love. Even though the naming of it interacts with the experience of the relationship, I don’t think it creates the relationship. But, I don’t know what creates or maintains a relationship, and the way the naming of it molds and bends the relationship itself is a mystery to me, too. I have known so many couples where the woman told the man they were in love, and he believed her, and so their love existed. That is a mystery to me.
Because Emma tells us that George never loves her, and she tells us believably, I do believe her, but I don’t understand. If he had said he loved her, would that have made it so? Because he said he loved Mary, did that make it so, even though he never really saw her? I can’t wrap my mind around those ideas.
There is that monologue Nick Cage delivers so beautifully in Moonstruck, here. The play put it into my head, and it is something I understand about the play and about love, and it is something I love about love. It is something about love that you can sink your teeth into. It goes like this:
“Loretta, I love you. Not like they told you love is, and I didn't know this either, but love don't make things nice - it ruins everything. It breaks your heart. It makes things a mess. We aren't here to make things perfect. The snowflakes are perfect. The stars are perfect. Not us. Not us! We are here to ruin ourselves and to break our hearts and love the wrong people and die. The storybooks are bullshit. Now I want you to come upstairs with me and get in my bed!”
Maybe George just needed to hear a speech like that, and he would have snapped out of it. Maybe not, though; I have no idea.
March 25, 2016
I've watched this play at least 10 times due to the fact that I worked on a production of this, and here are some unwanted observations from yours truly.
Cons
1. Julia Cho likes to use overblown metaphors.
2. One of the main characters tells a suicidal man that he should go deeper into his sadness. Kind of like Inception, but for sadness.
3. The concept of the "language of love" is kind of....uh, I don't know, hard to do well without making it sound kinda cliche.
Pros
1. Despite its faults, this play can be charming, and almost heartfelt with the right actors.
2. Has some good insights on unrequited love at times.
3. A short lesson in Esperanto.
Cons
1. Julia Cho likes to use overblown metaphors.
2. One of the main characters tells a suicidal man that he should go deeper into his sadness. Kind of like Inception, but for sadness.
3. The concept of the "language of love" is kind of....uh, I don't know, hard to do well without making it sound kinda cliche.
Pros
1. Despite its faults, this play can be charming, and almost heartfelt with the right actors.
2. Has some good insights on unrequited love at times.
3. A short lesson in Esperanto.
March 19, 2018
Quietly beautiful and profound play about love and language. This is definitely one of the most beautiful plays I have ever read and I would love to see it performed.
July 13, 2022
Documenting my first pass at 22-23 titles. Some of the best dialogue I've read in a while. GORG.
October 8, 2024
a play not just for people who read plays- it is for people period
February 7, 2020
My director from "9 to 5" (who was also my theatre history professor last semester) gave me a bunch of plays to borrow so I could look for monologues to keep in my audition repertoire, so this was the first one I read. It was pretty good! A unique concept, very artistic. I didn't connect with the characters as much as I wanted to, and the poor lab assistant didn't really get much of a story beyond her feelings for the protagonist, but overall it was enjoyable.
February 27, 2020
Needed a strong reworking with Show, Don’t Tell. Whatever poignant material could be found in the dialogue failed to resonate with me because I have zero context for how these characters behave. Expository, first person present monologues are fine in moderation, but not as a main storytelling vehicle. I had a hard time paying attention during the performance.
January 27, 2015
A rich concept bastardized. Stiff, aimless, clichéd.
December 17, 2015
Lyrical, funny and beautiful. Very satisfying.
March 28, 2016
This was great! Funny, emotional, unique. I'm about to be involved in a production of this and I can't wait!
June 26, 2019
This is a beautiful play about love, heartbreak, and language. Love as something unique, shared between two people; as an act of faith and creation; as something intangible; as something that morphs and changes and lasts or doesn’t.
It’s very sincere, but hit me at a good time.
It’s very sincere, but hit me at a good time.
July 10, 2017
Beautiful writing by a master of the craft. This work shimmers with humor and wisdom.
January 10, 2019
i read this my first time going to the drama bookstore in NY and when i looked up from the pages, everything was beautiful and worth finding. what can i say? julia cho's an instant favorite for me.
October 17, 2021
Cheesy but sweet, I'm legal obliged to like this as someone taking both theatre and linguistics classes lol
December 30, 2022
My absolute favorite play there is.
June 4, 2023
Very interesting use of breaking the fourth wall, but such a sweet and heartwarming play. It has a very cozy feeling to it that just feels so good to read, made me tear up at the end. :,)
May 24, 2024
Finally (finally) read this! Beautiful.
January 23, 2025
for THE 344.
a beautiful play that made me cry, with a few elements that don’t work quite well
a beautiful play that made me cry, with a few elements that don’t work quite well
April 20, 2025
this was absolutely beautiful
August 22, 2025
“Because what is language, my dear, if not an act of faith?”
January 19, 2026
Sad & poetic
September 9, 2020
"Jeg spiser brød og gråter på gulvet" - one of the most memorable phrases I learned on the cursed owl app when I was learning my fourth language, Norwegian, that seems like an appropriate ode to the character Mary, possibly the most underdeveloped character yet intriguing in the play. I would say I loved it if it didn't make me feel uncertain I know what Love even means anymore. For polyglot readers, you might chuckle at the gentle roasts and prodding at this internal drive within us to discover and trap ourselves in a never-ending maze - for we all know: the more you learn, the less you know. This story had me weeping (2 AM) in the morning adding songs from the Alias season 2 soundtrack to my Liked playlist for ineffable reasons. A farce, a sweet breeze.
March 31, 2016
This play is phenomenal.
We meet a linguist the moment before his wife decides to leave him and learn about love, pain, and language through all of his experiences that follow her announcement. It's a truly beautiful play that looks at heartbreak and love through many different lenses without every feeling like it is about love. The play examines love as much as it does sadness and independence and pursuing dreams.
There are so many powerful quotes in this play and several images that will stick with you long after you've finished reading.
We meet a linguist the moment before his wife decides to leave him and learn about love, pain, and language through all of his experiences that follow her announcement. It's a truly beautiful play that looks at heartbreak and love through many different lenses without every feeling like it is about love. The play examines love as much as it does sadness and independence and pursuing dreams.
There are so many powerful quotes in this play and several images that will stick with you long after you've finished reading.
February 6, 2015
A lovely play to read, and even more fun to be with. Not gonna lie, I think this sparked my interest in languages. I recommend seeing it over reading, the humor can't really be captured on just a page
March 8, 2015
If not a home run, then a triple that got nearly stretched into an in-the-park home run. Much like Almost, Maine, this is unabashedly romantic, and, like Almost, Maine, it carefully dances up to the line of twee without stepping over it. I got my eye on this one.
March 26, 2015
A sweet small play about what gets lost in translation. The translation, though, isn't from language to language but from person to person. About what can't be heard no matter how often or how it's said.
March 8, 2016
Very well written, with some excellent two-character scenes for actors.
October 11, 2013
I stage managed this show for it's premier in high school theatre and I absolutely fell in love with this show.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews