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When You Stand Alone

nytheatre.com review by Jonathan Calindas
August 15, 2005

When You Stand Alone, performed by the gifted Wesley Connor, is an evening of three monologues in the style of Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads, which paint detailed and often touching portraits of ordinary human beings. Written by Wesley Connor and director Sonia Norris, these three unpretentious pieces illuminate the intimate wants and fears of three very different characters and in doing so reveal their humanity in genuinely moving ways.The evening opens with Samuel, an energetically flamboyant Beatles fanatic who dresses the part and whose prized possession is a set of Beatles action figures, which, as he claims, was re-issued by the toymaker due to his efforts. He is preparing for a first date with someone he contacted through a personal ad, and in amusing examples, explains how he thinks John Lennon is sending him messages that this will be the person he will spend his life with.The second and strongest piece features Grace, who is ironing her husband’s clothes for the week in an elegant satin dress, white elbow gloves, and a French beret. She tells us how she has lived all of her small-town life in Nashville, Ontario with her frustratingly provincial husband Steve, who hates travel and insists on spending money domestically so as to help the Canadian economy. Grace finds great beauty in the simplest things in her life, but longs to escape to a life of sophistication and excitement, as embodied by Francois, a visiting French teacher from Paris.The third piece features Alex, a young, frustrated Goth, who believes that the world is falling apart and goes to great length explaining to us that religion is futile. But behind the angry exterior, we see a young frightened boy trying to find meaning to his life as he mourns the recent death of his mother who suffered from depression and whom, as a boy, he desperately tried to cheer up.The three pieces are linked by a prop piece; a flowerpot with two large flowers made out of colored cellophane, which represents a different meaning to each character. The direction by Norris finds the appropriate places for Connor to let loose his energy or to bring it all in, taking us with him into the character’s most intimate corners.The evening opens with Connor as Samuel lip-synching to the Beatles’ “Love Me Do,” almost pleading for the audience to love him, but as the evening progresses, we realize that he did not really need to beg. Those searching for a break from the loud, attention-seeking, noisy offerings of FringeNYC will find it in this simple, unassuming, and poignant evening presented by Connor and Norris.