This double bill of monologues explores what it means to feel confined, by circumstance, by routine and by the choices we make in life.
Two women. One crime. One awakening. One woman pushed to the edge; another, who thought her life was over when it wasn't. Two very different lives, each bound by routine, rules and expectations. But when memory, temptation and desire creep in, the lines between confinement and freedom become blurred.
In Victoria Mews, by Will Howells, Jan, a former primary school teacher, reflects on her life, her career and her retirement. But as her story unfolds and a shocking event disrupts her mundane life, questions of guilt, responsibility and memory come sharply into focus.
Winsome Webster, who appears in one of six monologues in Bombshells by Joanna Murray-Smith, is a widow who has settled into a predictable, somewhat monotonous existence, shaped by habit and the company of other widows. She is also a reader for the blind and during her visits to read to Patrick, a much younger man, something in her stirs. What begins as a simple act of kindness leads to unexpected joy and a renewed sense of possibility.
These two pieces are performed by Heather Page and directed by Alex Pearson, and offer a thoughtful, performed side by side, offer a thoughtful and often surprising insight into how lives are lived within boundaries, through choice, necessity or fear and how making a different choice can alter the course of a life, for better or worse.