Twists of fate

Same Time, Next Year
Watermark Theatre
June 25–August 31

Performed by: Cameron MacDuffee (George) and Jody Stevens (Doris)

Directed by: Robert Tsonos

Written by: Bernard Slade

Supported by: Khushi Chavda (set and costumes), Alison Crosby (lighting), Aaron Comeau (sound), Anne Putnam, Kate Redding, Katie Fitz-gerald (stage managers) 

This summer, Watermark Theatre stays true to its tradition of offering critically acclaimed productions with Same Time, Next Year, a massively successful Canadian play written in 1975 that spent four years on Broadway, won Tony Awards, and was adapted into a major motion picture. 

This sophisticated rom-com introduces the two lead characters in a hotel room the morning after a one night stand. The story follows Doris, played by Jody Stevens, and George, played by Cameron MacDuffee, through  twenty-four years of their extra-marital affair, played out in an annual extramarital rendez-vous. The couple wrestles with moral judgements, ruminating guilt complexes, and intense physical attraction. Through dialogue, their home lives and family dynamics are revealed.

As the decades pass from the 1950s to the 1980s, viewers witness the social eras through the personal lives of the characters and via lively references to the wider world. The rhythm of the production is anchored by Doris and George’s periodic connections to global historical events, with time lapses that contrast with the immediacy of the contemporary era of social media.  

Cameron MacDuffee, who has starred in many productions for the Charlottetown Festival, plays the neurotic accountant and family man, George. Jody Stevens, a seasoned actor of stage and screen, plays Doris, a proper Italian mother whose alibi for her absences is an annual Catholic retreat. Both actors navigate the evolution of their characters convincingly; the attraction to escape from the social responsibility and family duties is highly relatable, as they deal with the consequences of liberation and the confines of gender through the bends and twists in their lives.

The two strong leads carry the script, drawing on humour and compassion in their storytelling. The intimacy of the hotel room set offers an alluring voyeuristic experience of emotional gymnastics and very human, though scandalous, behaviour. Viewers can expect an excellent period comedy played out during the wider culture clashes of the Cold War era, including some of the rhetoric of ideological social trends, political beliefs, and pop psychology. Clever sound and costume design signal the passing of years.

In the first half of Same Time, Next Year, the action builds and viewers are lulled. As in life, twists of fate in the second half leave audience members audibly gasping, and I was left laughing at the prisons we build for ourselves and convinced of how attractive vulnerability is within the human motivations that connect us through time and place.