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Show: Alone Together
Society: Theatre Royal Windsor
Venue: Theatre Royal Windsor
Credits: By Simon Williams. Diected by Seam Mathias. Produced by Bill Kenwright
Type: Sardines
Author: Frank Kaye
Performance Date: 16/08/2023
Alone Together
Frank Kaye | 17 Aug 2023 18:05pm
Photo: Tom Daniels Photography
This moment is a bit special as I have been supported by my granddaughter, Lizzie Pannett, who is only 15 but a great enthusiast for theatre in all its forms. Her notes on the play are excellent and allow my stroke-affected brain to concentrate on the impact of the production. Alone Together is a new play by Simon Williams and is a three hander with two famous actors, Jenny Seagrove and Martin Shaw and a brilliant relative newcomer, Josh Goulding. Jenny and Martin have done a thirty-minute discussion of the play, and indeed themselves, online which provides some insight into the production process and, more importantly, the unknown impact the play will have on an audience.
They need not be concerned as the play is a resounding success. My granddaughter describes the first ten minutes or so as worrying as she was concerned she might not be able to concentrate and then suddenly it takes off and she is fascinated by the power of the emotions and the many changes of direction.
The set is a crucial part of how the play works. There are three areas which are separated by height and very clever lighting. The top area belongs to Jonty (Josh Goulding) where he tells the story as he creates it on his computer. The intermediate area is where he jumps down to a bench where he meets Angela (Jenny Seagrove) to have the sort of open discussion one has with strangers. The final area is the biggest part of the stage, at the front, where Angela and her husband Colin (Martin Shaw) live their damaged lives. The power of the set is demonstrated when Jonty goes from his room, around the back and in the front door of Colin’s house. He and us, the audience, are now in a completely different place and yet only a few feet away from his room.
The thread running through this play is that Angela and Colin lost a child through cot death eleven years ago and Angela fantasises about its continuing life whilst Colin shuts it out of his brain completely. That said, the play is a fantasy created by Josh as he writes a book and at the end he finds a way to have the characters reconciled. The power of the play resides in the character of Jonty who is played with a clarity and naivety by Josh Goulding. We journey with him from his room, to the bench (once with a huge jump from his room to the bench), to Angela and Colin’s house and even within his room from his desk to the bed. His mood moves from narrator to a stimulating participant and eventually to an overwhelmed participant.
Whilst the play is in the hands of Jonty, it is the story and portrayal of Angela and Colin’s relationship that pulls the audience in. The author uses the park bench as a way to allow Angela to unburden herself of the things that make her life with Colin unbearable. Angela always has food to share which enables the more telling sharing of deeper feelings. Jenny Seagrove manages the shifts of mood of her character with great skill.
The heavy stuff of the play largely happens on the front third of the stage. We have the dreariness of Angela and Colin’s life together, the unhappiness caused by Colin’s deceit about an affair and the secret life of Angela as she lives the fantasy life of her daughter, Tilly, through her on-line relationship with Jonty.
Whilst Jenny Seagrove portrays this fantasy life, Martin Shaw has a more tangible life to depict, which he does with great skill. He is confronted with a bizarre situation as Jonty comes to ask about his daughter and Colin then goes back to Jonty’s room to try to understand what is going on. The strength of his character is beautifully portrayed when he joins the other two actors on the park bench. The interaction between the three is a brilliant piece of writing, acting and direction.
As mentioned, this is a new play, and it works extremely well mostly as a result of the interaction of the short scenes and the different parts of the stage. The writer, Simon Williams, has built a complex interaction of the perspectives of the three characters and the audience remains unsettled throughout. My granddaughter felt that the ending was unfair on the character of Jonty as he was left bereft whilst the other two had reconciliation.
The director, Sean Mathias, is clearly crucial to the success of this play as is particularly clear from Jenny Seagrove’s description of the rehearsal process. With any new play there is deep exploration required to find the essence of the play’s purpose but also the nature of each of the characters and their interactions. Sean seems to have achieved this.
The production, lighting, and sound designers (Morgan Large, Nick Richings and Andy Graham) all deserve a huge congratulation for putting on a brilliant show. Great use is made of the height of the stage as well as the very effective strip lighting and lighting of different areas of the stage at key moments in the play. A number of times sound was used in a very effective way to allow almost imperceptible scene changes.
This is a very effective new play, and it seems almost certain that it will transfer to the West End at some point.