Second Summer of Love reflects on what it is like to be a Gen X former raver, now serious responsible adult and parent, and what happened to those joy-filled and optimistic free spirits. Framed around a mom and her teenage daughter who is revising for a Social Studies exam about drug use, the majority of the show exists in a flashback to her experiences as a 16 year old, raving in fields in the South of England. The flashbacks are when the play is strongest, but it really highlights how the script struggles when the other two actors are on stage; which is no disrespect to them, but rather to the impact of the adaptation from solo show to three hander. While this was needed for the actor’s ability to continue performing, the integration of the other characters as separate bodies in space needs more attention to help the script work in this new form.
Despite a strong performance from the lead actor, the injection of the additional characters, along with multiple false endings undermined its overall impact, which is too bad — as in its strong moments, it really had a funny and self-referential spark.