Writer and Director: Francesca Woods
Director: Francesca Woods
Alone, Together consists of vignettes from the lives of six teachers, interspersed with movement pieces designed to reverberate loneliness around the room. An intimate black box theatre space is perfect for a show like this, a show which relies on feeling so close to one’s neighbour and yet a million miles apart. Here, strangers become colleagues and colleagues become strangers, merely drifting past the true person inside each other within the frigid air of the staff room.
Peppered behind the experiences displayed here is the constant pressure of marking homework, a subtle, but highly visible prop feature that demonstrates writer and director Francesca Woods’ understanding of the profession. Despite these clever touches, the overall structure of Alone, Together feels disparate. There is a glimpse of a show that could have been here: the piecemeal form of the play reflecting the constant missed connections in the lives of these teachers who desperately want to see and be seen. In its current form, though, Alone, Together feels slightly incomplete – as if it serves only to teach a valuable lesson to students that their teachers are real people with real feelings.
Alone, Together is at its strongest when Gianlorenzo Neri is on stage. In his portrayal, Pietro is alive with loving confrontation. The play stumbles upon a glorious study of English withdrawal when viewed through his Italian lens. He is unafraid to be vulnerable and heartbreakingly real in his careful but unflinching delivery, not just in his voice, but in the tentative shrugs of his shoulders before he commits to reaching out. We wish nothing more than to see him burst in on all the other vignettes to shake the other characters into bravery.
When movement intervals interrupt these scenes, it echoes the distance and loneliness within the characters. However, most of these routines feel like basic exercises. They could help to bring the scenes together into a more powerful whole with a little more inventiveness and courage.
Alone, Together is, in sum, many small slices of life which achieve their goal of activating the audience to want more connection from life. We should all be Pietro more often.
Runs until 3 August 2025
Camden Fringe runs until 24 August 2025
