The Alonetimes

A bold new music-theatre work about memory, loneliness, and belonging by composers Jennifer Walshe and Philip Venables.
A Bronze Age druid carries out a ritual to summon those we have lost; a Gen Z woman navigates the utter isolation of bad relationships; a dancer in 1980s New York questions the dream he chased; decades from now, visions of two boys playing piano together in the 90s appear in a VR headset; next week, an ex-lover’s voice rattles through a broken walkie-talkie 20 years on from the last time you saw them.

The Alonetimes is a fragmented archaeology of personal stories, an intertextual polyphony of moments of isolation operating across time and space. Six multi-skilled performers slip in and out of different voices, different lives. They tell stories, the sort of stories we carry around like pebbles in our pockets, stories we need to tell in order to finally set them down and move forward, in order not to be trapped between different periods of time.

By turns deeply moving and darkly comic, The Alonetimes weaves together semi-autobiographical stories and historical texts – broken friendships, fumbled sexual encounters, quiet moments of revelation, mid-life crises, emotional meltdowns and online dating profiles. Words that won’t come out of the mouth and words that tumble out uncontrollably. A trash-talking, chain-vaping Druid from 3300 BC threads our path through this kaleidoscopic minefield, urging performers and audience alike to work through the challenges from our past, put it to rest, and maybe feel a bit less alone.

Through two very different bodies of work and working practices, Jennifer and Philip share a common love for storytelling, collage, the voice and music theatre at its most eclectic. They often weave their own life experiences into their work, striving to make direct, visceral connections with the audience; music theatre that can ask what it means to be alive, that talks openly and honestly about human relationships. Jennifer and Philip are excited to collide their practices in this work, to be collaborative and playful with each other; to write over, into and underneath each other’s work. It will be an adventure.

Part of Utopia Now!, a season exploring the role of the arts in making a better future possible.