Same Time Next Year (1995)
Directed by Pip Piacentino
Performances: Weds 11th – Sat 14th January 1995, Bell Theatre
Contents
Introduction
The entire action of the play takes place in a guest cottage of the "Sea Shadows Inn" in Northern California.
Act 1: Scene 1: A day in late spring 1951, Scene 2: A day in late spring 1956, Scene 3: A day in late spring 1961
Act 2: Scene 1: A day in late spring 1965, Scene 2: A day in late spring 1970, Scene 3: A day in late spring 1975
Cast
- Doris - Maxine Canham
- George - Keefe Browning
Crew
- Set Design - Alan Buckman
- Stage Manager - Colin Starkey
- Assistant Stage Manager - Robert Stocks
- Lighting Design - Brian Fretwell
- Lighting Operator - Fay Johnson
- Sound - Paul O'Connor
- Miss Canham's Dresser - Yvonne Walters
- Mr Browning's Dresser - Joe Whitehouse
Reviews
The village of Brigadoon appeared once every hundred years, and lived for a day before vanishing again into Scotch mist.
Adulterous couple George and Doris in Bernard Slade's two-hander, do not have to wait so long for their one-night stands, which occur once a year over a quarter of a century.
This long-term relationship gives the author plenty of scope for both wry comedy and acerbic wit, and we don't have to compare it with real life.
Nevertheless I can't help feeling that such a set-up would require from both parties a degree of patience to make Job look positively impetuous.
We meet them first in 1951, young people having a fling and feeling mightily guilty about it. Five years later, his guilt at least still bothers him, like a nagging tooth, for it is instantly rekindled by a telephone call from his daughter about a lost tooth.
We follow them through the sixties, when she is hooked on flower-power and he on right-wing politics, and to the calmer waters of middle age, by which time she has become a successful entrepreneur and he a widower, selfishly demanding that she leav her husband and marry him.
Pip Piacentino has given us a production not exactly high on laughs - a lot of amusing one-liners go begging - but strong on character. By the end of two hours Maxine Canham and Keefe Browning have taken us through many changing moods, and we feel we know Doris and George inside out, warts and all.
Donald Madgwick, the Croydon Advertiser.
Gallery
Reminiscences and Anecdotes
From the programme:- The most memorable rehearsal was in the director's flat when it took us 3 hours and 5 bottles of wine to get from page 46 to page 48.
See Also
Have there been other SLCT/SLT productions of this play? Link to them here.
Or add anything that is related within this site. The author's page for instance or other plays with a similar theme.
References
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