Review: One Day When We Were Young, Park Theatre - awkward conversations
05/03/2025
One Day When We Were Young at the Park Theatre is a 2011 play by Nick Payne that starts on the eve of a young soldier's deployment during WW2, where he is spending the night with his girlfriend. They promise to wait for each other and build a life together after the war.
Leonard (Barney White) isn't scared of going to war as much as he is about losing Violet (Cassie Bradley) while he is away.
We leave them with bombs falling and jump ahead to two encounters first when they are in their 40s, then later to when they are elderly.
It is quickly apparent that Violet didn't wait. Was it that young love is fleeting, merely a brief infatuation? Did circumstances get in the way? How long was Leonard away?
The problem is that the information about why this youthful love fizzled out is scant. Given the awkwardness between the two on their romantic evening together and subsequent encounters, did they ever really love each other?
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