Letter Perfect

Dear Jack, Dear Louise
Watermark Theatre, North Rustico
July 11, 2025

Reviewing plays is a job. Not a very steady or lucrative one, but a job all the same. You take the money and you do your best to meet the deadline, stay within the word count, engage with the subject respectfully and give readers some information and insight regarding each show, ideally with a pinch of textual pizzazz. 

That said, reviewing is also a privilege, a gift. You get to see a lot of shows, often for free, and you’re exposed to a wider range of actors, stories, styles and subject matter than you might ever see as a plain vanilla theatre patron, partly because you attend many plays as a reviewer that you might never have paid to see. This can lead to delightful surprises. 

Watermark Theatre’s Dear Jack, Dear Louise is one such delight. The hit 2019 play penned by Tony-winner Ken Ludwig has a good reputation, and Watermark is a lovely venue with a history of excellence; but I’m not a big romantic comedy guy and the show’s concept of exchanging love letters sounded limiting, so if I hadn’t been assigned to review it, I’m not sure I would have seen it. That would have been my loss, because Watermark’s take on Ludwig’s play is a captivating treasure. 

Set during World War II and based on the real-life correspondence courtship of Ludwig’s parents, DJDL features U.S. Army Captain Jack Ludwig (played here by Feast Dinner Theatre veteran Brandon Stafford), a military doctor stationed in Oregon who becomes pen pals with Louise Rabiner (played by New Brunswick native Caroline Bell), an aspiring actress and dancer in New York City. Their parents were friends and had suggested the pair might hit it off. Exchanging letters for years, the duo forms a strong emotional bond; but Jack’s wartime duties keep them apart, imperiling their nascent romance. 

I’ll pause here to confess what a silly old man I am, a suggestible sentimentalist beneath my decades-deep veneer of professional detachment. This being the Ludwigs’ real-life courtship, we know Jack and Louise end up together and Jack survives the war; but the script and the superb performances of Bell & Stafford pulled me into their world and made me forget, on occasion, that the destinies of Jack and Lousie were largely settled. You feel for this couple, care for them, root for them. 

Ludwig’s script doesn’t transcribe his parents’ many love letters—his late mother burned them, deeming them too private to share—so Ludwig has lots of latitude for invention and reconfiguration, albeit all rooted in his family’s oral history. That textual freedom helps some of the couple’s intersecting letters often sound more like something akin to dialogue—an organic and oft-lively exchange, not just isolated recitation. 

Having great actors bring those lines to life is another plus. Stafford leans convincingly into Jack’s stiffly subdued military medical man persona at first, broadening his emotional palette as the couple get closer and Jack loosens up via the charms of Louise and the pressures of war. It’s a smart, fun, often moving performance which Bell matches and then some. 

Bell’s genuine, hilarious, heartbreaking and infinitely expressive Louise is a joyous, unpredictable marvel. Her propulsively feisty delivery has the period-appropriate, rat-a-tat rhythm of a 1940s Warner Brothers contract player—and the assertive oddball charisma of an Amy Sherman-Palladino heroine, to use a more modern reference. Bell’s the best part of an altogether great production. 

Other notable parts include designer Sabrina Balliana’s credible period costumes and impressive, deftly detailed split-stage set (half Louise’s home, half Jack’s barracks, with decorative handwritten letters papering the edges of the playing spaces); sound designer Rehan Lalani’s effective mix of period music and atmospheric sound effects; Ryan Rafuse’s adroitly articulate lighting design; and director Robert Tsonos ably masterminding the whole shebang, including animated, coherent blocking that uses the whole space while nimbly navigating the Watermark thrust stage’s competing sight lines. 

The cherry atop this theatrical sundae, the clincher, the show’s secret weapon, is the Watermark itself. The intimacy and immersive immediacy of such a compact venue heightens the intensity of this potently emotional, irresistibly charming production, a show to be not just seen but experienced—and there’s no finer theatrical experience on PEI this summer.

Performances of Dear Jack, Dear Louise run until August 30. For tickets, visit locarius.io/organizations/26 or call the box office at 902-963-3963.