Notes from a Playwright: Robert Schenkkan on 'Bob & Jean, A Love Story'

It was love at first sight.

That’s what it felt like when Deborah, my partner then and now my wife, showed me Sag Harbor. Almost 10 years later, it still feels that way. I love this combination of ocean, forest, and farms. This unique community. Sure, it gets a little blurry in August but when the crowds leave and its just us again, it feels like home. Like family. And that’s why it was here, in Sag harbor, that I wrote this play, Bob & Jean, A Love Story, which is coming to the Bay Street Theater in May.

The play is based on the correspondence between my parents during World War II. Bob, a naval bomb disposal officer, was stationed in the Pacific while Jean, an actress, was touring the USA in a USO production of Arsenic and Old Lace, to entertain the troops. They had just fallen in love when the War separated them by 6,000 miles! Theirs was a passionate love but hard won; the best kind. The kind that endures. You know what I mean.

I’d always known about the letters. Our house was full of memorabilia – seashells sat next to hand grenades (defused of course!) and in the attic were carboard boxes of their letters, neatly tied up with ribbon. “It’s how your father wooed me,” Jean would say. And there would be those secret looks between them.

But not very interesting for a boy. Children can be so selfish! Of course, we think we know our parents, but only through the brittle lens of our own needs.  It wasn’t until I was grown up, with children of my own, that I begin to think about my parents as people, with hopes and dreams of their own, quite separate from me and my brothers. Now, there were conversations I wanted to have but it was too late, Bob and Jean had passed.

During Covid, Deborah and I hunkered down in Sag. It was a time for reflection, for taking stock, for considering the question Jean had often asked, “What makes a life worthwhile?” Every day, I would walk up and down Long Beach and pick up scallop shells and think about my father, Bob, in 1943, walking the beaches of Vanuatu, picking up seashells to send to Jean. I still have those shells. And, of course, those letters. It was time to read them.

There were a lot of surprises! Good and bad. All of them interesting. But gradually Bob and Jean’s story began to emerge and because I’m a writer, I started to consider how to share this with an audience. The first version was a podcast for Audible, but it was always going to be a play because the theater is what I love, and that’s where Bob and Jean met, in the theater.

And that’s why it feels so appropriate to bring this world premiere production to Bay Street, my hometown theater. I love the intimacy of this stage, how closely the audience sits to the actors, and the high quality of the work they produce. Bay Street and Sag Harbor have given me a lot and Bob & Jean, A Love Story is my thank you gift. I hope you’ll join us. Bob and Jean were always generous hosts and their story is funny and surprising and charming and ultimately very moving. When you come, bring someone you love. You’ll walk out holding hands, just like you used to do, in those early golden days when your love made the world seem new and miraculous.

Robert Schenkkan is a playwright from Sag Harbor. Bob & Jean, A Love Story, will run from May 27 to June 15, at Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor.