While We’re Here is a story of Carol and Eddie, former lovers who meet by chance in later life and spend a few days together, revisiting old memories and trying to unravel what their lives have become. Since they last saw each other, Eddie has travelled the world, while Carol has stayed in her home town, looking after her elderly mother and parenting her daughter alone. When they meet again, Eddie is living a disjointed, nomadic lifestyle, searching for some kind of purpose in his life, while Carol appears secure in her job and home, but it doesn’t take long before Eddie realises that she’s lonely.
In many ways, the most beautiful thing about this play is its apparent mundanity – the set could be your mum’s living room, the dialogue could be the chat you have with a colleague on your lunch break. But it’s just so real. Eddie and Carol’s conversation ranges from discussing favourite animals to suicide attempts, but at no point feels contrived. You could believe that you were eavesdropping on an intimate conversation in a café between old friends.
For this, writer Barney Norris deserves to be praised. He has done a lovely thing with his close character and language observations and his nods to occurrences outside that narrative and only half-revealed. The audience is left feeling that they could spend days uncovering the lives of the people who make appearances around the periphery of this play, but are never seen on stage.
Andrew French and Tessa Peake-Jones are perfectly cast for the roles of Eddie and Carol. French is almost manic – his restless energy conveys so much about Eddie’s past and the way he makes decisions about his life, while Peake-Jones is nervous and earnest as Carol. She is aware that allowing Eddie to stay in her home is treading close to a line of uncertainty that she hasn’t approached in many years, and it shows in every awkward laugh and her shaking hand as she pours a glass of wine.
I loved this play from Up In Arms (with the Bush Theatre and Farnham Maltings), and if you’re around Oxford this week, head to the North Wall and check it out for yourself. A short play at just over an hour, it’ll resonate emotionally with you for much longer than that! ★★★★☆ @BookingAround at The North Wall, Oxford on 7th June 2017
