Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

An affair to remember and revisit

By BARBARA L. FREDRICKSEN
Published February 9, 2007

Adultery has never been so much fun as it is in the two-person comedy-drama Same Time, Next Year.

The play is at the Forum at Stage West Community Playhouse in Spring Hill weekends Feb. 16-25.

The 1975 play is set in a California inn and opens in 1951, when the happily married, but tense and nervous accountant, George (Gary McCarragher, doctor in It Runs in the Family) has a chance meeting with the also happily married, but rather clumsy and self-conscious Doris (Jennifer Vilardi, Amy in Charley's Aunt).

After an evening of dining and talking, they find themselves in bed together, much to their surprise.

They go back to their homes and kids, thinking they'll never see each other again. But, a year later, they both decide to take a sentimental journey back to the inn on the anniversary of their first meeting. Without planning it, they repeat the year before.

From then on, the annual trysts become a tradition. For 25 years, through the ups and downs of their lives, they meet for a yearly fling.

As times passes, the highly-charged George drops out, goes to group therapy, becomes a hippie, endures personal tragedy and enjoys personal triumph.

Meanwhile, Doris blossoms, going to college, building a career and becoming an all-new person she really learns to like.

Their life cycles, though, never seem to match. When he's up, she's down; when she's flying high, he's in the doldrums. Interestingly, each appears to be the very support the other needs just at the moment it is needed.

Same Time, Next Year ran for more than three years on Broadway - 1,453 performances - a phenomenal run for a straight play. It was made into an Academy Award-nominated movie in 1978.

Fast Facts:

Same Time, Next Year

Where: The Forum at Stage West Community Playhouse, 8390 Forest Oaks Blvd., Spring Hill.

When: 8 p.m. Feb. 16, 17, 23 and 24; 2 p.m. Feb. 18 and 25.

Tickets: $10, reserved seating. Box office is open 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays and an hour before each show. Call (352) 683-5113.

[Last modified February 8, 2007, 22:30:11]