Email from Sonny on what I missed when I didn’t go for his play. Damn, wished I watched it. Wished he tried harder to persuade me. Sonny, thanks for letting me post this. In his words “Yes, go ahead and post them. Who knows where these postings may lead?”.

Hi folks –

I thought I would share with you the following email…..Leslie came and thought it was one of those rare evenings of theatre for her that did not miss the mark (Leslie has often described her evenings at the theatre in these terms, of how close or far a show was in reaching the mark), Ferlin came but had to leave at interval due to jetlag, and I tried my best to persuade Philip to come as I felt it was a play that he would have enjoyed tremendously…..read on and enjoy it all vicariously.

For those of you who didn’t come, you will now never know how I responded to the audience’s favourite line in the play, when the character Rosemary turns to me and says: “Do you want me to suck your cock?”.

Sonny

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Yes, the audiences said it was quite a knock-out : layered, textured, witty and, finally, very moving at the end. It was about three arresting characters in search of a ‘companion’ for life. Rosemary, a middle-aged English teacher befriends Lilian, an Ah-Lian type child-woman, wild, impulsive, manipulative, and they have a 15-year relationship during which Rosemary helps to bring up Lilian’s daughter. When the play opens, Lilian has brought home a middle-aged Kenneth whom she befriended at a social function. He is rich, educated, very prim and not terribly high in the EQ dept (hence providing much of the comic counterfoil for the notion of ‘companionship’) – Lilian has never dated anyone like him before. This triggers events that take place over the next 6 hours, from 2am to 8am, which brings it all to a head. The play, however, employs flashbacks and flashbacks within flashbacks techniques to keep the audience on its toes, releasing essential information in measured drips into the audience.

My two co-actors gave wonderful authentic performances that stood up to the scrutiny of an audience who sat very close to us. In such a situation, an actor cannot strike one false note anywhere. Tears flowed freely, and sometimes surreptitiously, on many faces among the audience in the final moments. As I was not in the final moments, I could stand and watch the audience’s reactions. I myself cried at nearly every performance while watching my fellow actors from the wings.

The theme was so familiar to all – the human need for intimate companionship. This is perhaps even more fundamental than the need to ‘love and be loved’. My character, Kenneth, provided the comic counterfoil to the deeper needs of the two women. And I don’t think Kenneth was even at the level of needing to ‘love and be loved’. He is rich, well set-up career-wise, collects antiques, lives with his mother. His level of need was summed up in his lines at the end: “I wish it had turned out differently. I really liked Lilian. I thought maybe she was the one. I thought we could keep each other company, see a film together, see the world together. It’s not much fun always buying one ticket…”

Talking about it now, I wish I had tried harder to persuade friends to see it….

Sonny