Cast

Synopsis

Ronald Harwood, author of “The Dresser” brings us another searing insight into what drives people, what influences mould their lives, their attitudes and their relationships. Set initially in the ’50s in Cape Town the play involves us in the emotional conflicts of a family whose teenage son is an outstanding pianist. His future is in Europe, and 35 years later in London the effect on his life of his single minded devotion to his music is revealed.

Directors Notes

If you have recurrent sensations of déjà vu during the course of the evening we shall have succeeded in one of our aims.

Let me explain.

In the first place the characters, five immigrant Jews in Cape Town, though they are in no way stereotypes, they are most convincingly drawn and you are probably going to recognise them from the characteristics of your own nearest and dearest. I certainly do from mine!

In the second place we repeat several short sections of the drama where the scenes overlap, so if you don’t at times see the same thing twice something has gone drastically wrong.

Set in South Africa, one of the world’s current melting pots of social unrest and adjustment, “Another Time” is not a cliché of general Jewish/South African suffering, but an individual stage portrait of a family which is truer than reality. There are no easy lessons or moral judgements. just living characters who sometimes win and sometimes lose, but never give up without a fight. You’ve seen them before and you’ll see them again, and again, and again…