Two Alone/Too Together
nytheatre.com review by Julie Congress
August 18, 2011
Two Alone/Too Together is a rambling play about loneliness and the lengths people will go (or not go) to let others into their lives. Mr. Donnelly, a photographer, finds himself in a hospital room after a car accident—his arm is in a sling and he has a concussion. Enter Stephen, a nurse sent to keep Mr. Donnelly awake. They begin to talk for the sake of talking—about Donnelly’s artwork, about why his car went off the road, about everything. Donnelly suggests that they role-play each other’s exes (Donnelly, himself straight, has somehow gleaned that Stephen is gay). Stephen resists (for a time) while they talk about intimacy and have a very unusual (and rather contrived) conversation for two people who have just met.
There is a really excellent (almost horror film style) twist in the story, but I won’t give that away here. Ultimately, though, playwright Peter Welch (who also plays Donnelly) has created a play about two lonely men looking for intimacy in their lives.
The show feels under-rehearsed—this is a very wordy play, but the lines often don’t sound conversational. The pacing is consistently slow, and the stakes never seem that high for the characters. Everything is said with the same intensity, making the text a drone of words. Welch, actor Stephen Dym, and director Vincent Scott are not without talent, but it does feel like Two Alone/Too Together is not yet ready—as a script or a performance.
