duet for one

two people sit alone in a room. one takls and talks, revealing intimancies. the other listens intently, offering up an occasional comment or query. they might be lovers, though they never quite touch, despite the presence of a coach. they might be parent and grown child. or they might be patient and analyst.
the technology of talking cure that freud invented over 100 years ago is one sense a simulacrum of a love affair. attentiveness to every aspect of the other, freedom to say anything it comes into your mind without incurement judgment, revelations about the self and the past seen or lived afresh through another's eyes, secrets teased out, projections onto the other of versions of love learned in childhood, the hope of transformation, these are common to both kinds of scene.

tom kempinsky's duet for one, revolving around six therapy sessions between the violonist stephanie abrahams (sparkling ang ironically interpreted by juliet stevenson) and her psychiatrist, dr feldman (a combination of robert de niro and hercule poirot by henry goodman), harks back to an older model of the therapeutic relationship.

at the very peak of her musical success, her ability to play the violin, makes the music which has been her life, is at an end because of multiple sclerosis.
the journey is hardly a straightforward one, whatever the coping pills fredmann can provide.

their duet is one in which, by prompting, pointing and quering, conducts a virtuoso performance of the self that is painfully and heroically hers.

enjoyable and memorable evening @ vaudeville theatre, 402 strand, london wc2r onh