Growing old gracefully with cheese rolls and bowls

Don’t anticipate experiencing highlycharged denouements or cathartic drama in the Lyttelton Arts Factory’s production of Jane McLauchlan’s play Gladys and Alfie – an Invercargill love story.

What you will discover is a gently spoken but unquestionably affectionate study of enduring love and growing old. These are two gentle souls who never rage against the dying of the light.

Instead they are so deeply connected by 45 years of marriage that they assume that it will always be a duet rather than a solo. If, as Shakespeare observed, love is an ever-fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken, Gladys and Alfie are rarely disconcerted by whatever domestic or meteorological storms have swept through their placid lives.

Gladys is chirpy, doughty but with moments of great uncertainty. Alfie is her quiet, dependable and utterly steadfast helpmate.

As the years pass, life rests on seemingly immovable habits and routines – tea (naturally with cheese rolls) every Wednesday at the Dainty Tearooms, the daily crossword for her, bowls for him.

The nearest they come to sin is gate crashing the weddings of complete strangers but as Gladys reminds an embarrassed Alfie, according to Fair Go, weddings are public events.

Directed by Mike Friend, Gladys and Alfie quietly unfolds against Michael Carlton’s clever staging which underpins this one act play with five mini-sets. The LAF is also fortunate to have recruited Yvonne Martin and Geoffrey Heath for the title roles.

This is a wordy play which, in less experienced hands might falter, but Martin and Heath are accomplished hands at portraying the subtle nuances and hidden codes which any story of this nature must contain. Their performances – together and separately – are impeccable.

On the surface, nothing much happens in Gladys and Alfie – and here lies the potential for disaster.

But for the professionalism of Friend’s direction and Martin and Heath’s performances, it would contain the opportunity for a steep descent into the gooey sentimentality which plays about love in life’s wintertime frequently reflect.

Director, cast and playwright navigate a fraught terrain with thoughtfulness, humour and considerable grace.

You leave with the feeling that, despite the calm, unruffled nature of this particular relationship, it nevertheless contains an undemonstratively heroic quality.

The nearest they come to sin is gate crashing weddings ...