Alone, written by Luke Thornborough and performed by Alchemy Theatre, is a cinematic feast for the senses and a compelling drama. Cheerfully energetic pilot Jessica Holland, played with spirit by Courtney Bassett, and the more remote and enigmatic Dr. Sarah Taylor (Anthea Hill) have devolved into an Odd Couple dynamic after two years aboard the Lily of the Nile in deep space. The ketchup splutters fecklessly over Holland’s noodles, and it’s a bit of gustatory foreshadowing, because the ship isn’t faring too well, either.
A word of praise has to be said up front about the carefully conceived staging: the set is visually immersive – even within the small space of the venue – from dials to air plants, evoking the women’s brutally utilitarian environment and the personal sacrifices they’ve made for their work. The use of music helps to define the characters from the outset and touchingly bookends some relationships. And, especially, olfaction is employed in a particularly innovative way – the stale smell of hot, cheap packaged noodles puts you squarely within their cramped quarters and keeps you there during all the action that follows.
Alone bills itself as a feminist production, but, in practice, this amounts merely to a recitation of the sexist slights the women have encountered in their professions – a bit of gallows humour, to be sure – to see these injustices still with us in a production set in the future, but also hardly explored as a theme. Similarly, the subject of Taylor’s religiosity is discussed at some length, in a tension-deflating subplot that never truly goes anywhere. Feminism and theology appear rather like ideological payload grafted onto this particular spacecraft to stake a claim to intellectual depth.
Nor are they really needed here. The characters’ relationships with each other and the references made to their families are wonderfully rich, and themselves sufficient to carry interest and engagement within this short drama. They also set things up effectively to create the impact of the powerful ending.
Alone is at its best when being purely a thriller. There’s a little bit of hand-waving around some of the technical explanations in the script, and it’s possible to nit-pick about the necessity of some of the decisions made as the options foreclose and the conclusion hurtles into view, but you probably won’t want to – you’ll be too busy enjoying the ride.
