Hello/ Goodbye

Photos by Reinhard Reidinger, from Vienna's English Theatre

Hello/ Goodbye

· by Peter Souter

· April 4th, 2016

· Vienna English Theater

To be honest, I was rather disappointed at the play.

Peter Souter is a British advertising creative working for a few companies, and he is a writer for plays for theatres and radios. Hello/Goodbye is his debut play, which was sold out in its first run in 2013 at Hampstead Theater.

Hello/Goodbye tells the story of the first and the last hours of the couple, Juliet and Alex. Therefore, the first half of the play is about how they first met each other, and the second half about their separation. Alex is a nerdy and introvert man, who collected every toy that McDonald has ever had and likes to keep things in order. On the contrary, Juliet is a loud and extrovert woman who is arrogant and a little bit shallow. Naturally, the meeting of the two turned out to be a quarrel. The play started with Alex unpacking his belongings in an empty apartment, and then Juliet entered the apartment. Juliet got mad at the unexpected Alex because she thought she was the legal leasee, and she rudely ordered Alex to leave “immediately” and threatened that her “enormous boyfriend will come and squeeze your head”. However, Alex told her that her state agent messed up because he had the key and legal document of the apartment. Throughout their “fighting” talks, Juliet and Alex actually got to know each other a lot. For example, Juliet is a great cook and works in the kitchen; her relationship is also in a bad situation because she slept with her boyfriend’s best friend on his wedding day; she thinks that every man would fall for her and wants to sleep with her; Alex is an amateur collector and he’s passionate at the mathematical spiral rule; he wants to achieve the sense of completeness by collecting things and he is good at sex. Their “fighting” talk gradually turned into flirting. Juliet successfully convinced her boyfriend Leo to come, but instead of beating up Alex, Leo broke up with Juliet and left. Alex then offered Juliet to live in the box room. Later when Juliet helped Alex move his boxes, she took off her coat with only a “Victoria secret’s bra” on top because it is “hot summer day”, and then Alex and Juliet kissed and have sex. After the interval, the play started in the same empty apartment setting. We can follow the story as Juliet appeared and said to Alex “I can’t believe that I am getting divorce!” and “Do you remember when we first met 10 years ago…” This is the scene about their separation after their once happy 10 years’ relationship. Juliet seemed to be wiser and sadder this time. Alex already sorted his stuff and Juliet’s belongings to make the moving easier. However, they needed to go over the joint stuff and decide who’s taking what. Therefore, they went over the joint stuff one by one and picked up the related bittersweet memories. There is also a mysterious woman Amanda appeared in the second plot. She at first appeared as a “mover” for Alex, although she looked elegant and beautiful and was in expensive attires. Juliet was jealous and assumed that she’s Alex’s new lover. In the end, it turned out that Amanda is actually a buyer of Alex’s collections. Alex thought that “it might help if I sell my collections” in his marriage. He asked Juliet if she wanted to move to a house near the ocean with him and they can have babies. At the last moment of the play, Juliet agreed by saying “I think I will go with you.” Unlike other plays that usually try to depict epic things or explore unusual topics, this play is about ordinary love of an ordinary couple. I think that Souter chose this theme because it is important to draw people’s attention at love in ordinary people, and he wanted to show the common-in-life meeting, flirting, arguments and separation of couples in a humorous way with witty and sharp dialogues and an overall innovative structure where he only showed the first and last hours of the couple. I think that he wanted to show how two very different people could fall in love with each other, but then over time, under life pressure, love is not forever and can be damaged. I think that the theme is relevant to the play, as the play, through dialogues, showed us how different Alex and Juliet are, yet the young and impulsive characters fell in love with each other. In their relationship, Juliet was the one who worked every day and provided money to Alex and his collecting habit. Juliet was overwhelmed by her work and money pressure and blamed Alex on not helping at all. And Juliet felt that Alex cared more about the things he collected then her. These life pressure over time gradually led to their separation.

The performance of the play however didn’t meet the goals. I think that the actors did a great job performing, the script was well-written with humorous and sharp dialogues, however, the plot and the story themselves are not very convincing. For example, it seems unreasonable to me that two strangers can move in together in the first hour of their meeting full of quarrels; also, I feel like Juliet’s character is overly shallow and loud, almost overwhelming. She’s rude and threatened Alex for like more than 5 times that she will ask her boyfriend to “beat you up” and “squeeze your head off”; she made some mistakes but she doesn’t feel apologetic but blame them all on other people. It is just strange that in the first scene Alex would offer a person like Juliet to live in the box room. It is even more strange when Alex and Juliet kissed and had sex at the end of their first hour’s meeting, just because Juliet took off her coat with a bra on top, and they both couldn’t resist the impulse. And their kiss and sex happened right after Juliet broke up with her boyfriend, where she cheered up immediately from the breakup and flirted with Alex. And Alex, who insisted that he “is not interested” in Juliet and “will not have sex” with her, and thought the idea was ridiculous, kissed and had sex with her immediately after she took off her coat. It just seems to me that the plot doesn’t make a lot of sense as it lacks some more substance to build up to make it more convincing. This is the same for the second half when the two are separating. I think the structure where Souter shows the first and the last hours of the couple is very innovative, and I like most of the second half of the play as well, because throughout dialogues, which carry back their memories, the audience can get to know their bittersweet memories of the past ten years and be convinced that they were together for a long time. However, the ending to me seems to be a little bit too abrupt and quick. After knowing that Alex had a whole box of collection of Juliet’s things, that he cared about her a lot, and that he sold out all his collections to save their relationship, all the sadness and hatred towards each other went away, and Juliet decided to go with him right away. It is a happy ending that makes everyone in the theatre laughed and relaxed, however, I don’t like the ending that much. The play’s name is Hello/Goodbye, but in the end, the couple is still together, which seriously reduced the tragic element, which would have made this play more profound. Also, to save the marriage, Alex sacrificed his collecting habit, which is a huge and important part of his life. He didn’t seem to be sad about that, rather, saying that this shows that “he grows up”, and Juliet, after knowing that, took it for granted and happily be with him without any bad feelings. The pace that they made their decisions, including their separation and their reconciliation, is too fast and make me feel like they are immature adults that make impulsive decisions all the time. Also, the play tried to give a happy ending, where the couple figured out they actually still love each other and they found out in their quarrels that they both still care about each other a lot. However, I think that this goal of the ending is damaged by the fact that Alex has to sacrifice what he love doing. I feel like the message of the ending here could be misunderstood in a sarcastic way that to save love you have to abandon what you love doing and not be yourself. Nevertheless, I think the actors did a great job acting. They were very energetic and emotional in the play, and I believe that they use the Stanislavski's method as their acting style and the play is representational. They seemed to be totally immerged in the story and didn’t acknowledge the audience. They seemed to put a lot of personal emotions in their acting and relate the story to their personal life and feelings, because in the second half of the play, from time to time, there were tears in their eyes in some emotional moments. I think that their acting definitely strengthened the characters and the story. Their acting, their facial expression and their emotions make the characters that the play wants to create convincing and vivid. In this play, I don’t think that the production is overly staged; I think the story is well told and the staging was natural. It was just that the story itself seems to be a little strange to me.

The technical elements of the play is actually quite simple. The two plots are both set in a brightly lighted room, which is supposed to be the living room and kitchen area of the apartment. There were two doors in the apartment, where one was supposed to be the front door and the other one connects to the rooms in the apartment. The room setting is visually pleasant and give the audience an easy feeling, as the color of the walls is of light and warm yellow, and the room is modern and equipped with a full kitchen. Yet the room is spacious for acting, and the bright light makes the acting very clear to be seen by the audience. The costume of the two characters is quite modern and trendy for young people as well. In the first plot, Juliet wore a yellow skirt with flower dots on it and a denim coat with a red Victoria Secret bra inside, and Alex a relaxing tank top. It is interesting to see that their clothing actually fits their different characters quite well. Alex’s wearing is more relaxing and chill, and on the contrary, Juliet’s wearing is lively and beautiful. In the second plot, both of them are wearing dark-colored winter coats, which make both of them seem to be more serious. The winter clothing suits the second plot’s sadness atmosphere well. It is worthwhile mentioning the props of the play. I think that the props are innovatively and effectively used. In the first plot, there were toy collections framed in wood frames laying on the floor, in the boxes, and Alex was taking them out and putting them on the walls. Soon the walls were not empty anymore but with the decoration of his collections. In the second plot, the first thing that I noticed was that the walls were empty, and I was confused. But then the play gave me the answer, that the reason why is because it was the separation moment of the couple. I really like this arrangement, as it helps you raise question and be curious, and so audience can be more involved in the play. Another thing is that in the first plot, when Juliet decided to fry eggs to make sandwiches, she used a real egg. At that moment when she broke the egg, there was a gasp from the audience, because everyone was surprised that it was a real egg. I think that the use of a real egg make the play acting more vivid, real and also help to form its humorous atmosphere in the first plot.

As mentioned in the “goals” that the writer and the play wanted to communicated to its audience, this show focus on the love on ordinary couples, but more precisely, ordinary young couples. I think that this play exaggerate the different developing stages of young couple’s love, yet it gives people a sense of similarity and familiarity. For example, as discussed, Alex and Juliet started from quarreling to flirting to sex, where their quarreling and flirting were mixed together and become fun dialogues, is very similar to how young people like to talk with people who attract them. It also shows the young, impulsive and fast-paced love that seem to be more common in the modern culture now. Also, in the separation part, the play point out a very important reason that cause troubles in relationships, the financial pressure. Therefore, in this part, through Juliet’s narrative of how stressful she feels and how she thinks Alex doesn’t care about her a lot, give the audience a good observation from a third person perspective of how financial pressure can influence relationship in a tragic way and therefore, the audience can relate to and reflect on their own experience. The target audience of the play is young people in their 20s or 30s, because it talks about the less matured and impulsive love in younger people. However, I don’t find much personal relevance from this play, as I am more of a considerate and thoughtful person, and I sometimes worry too much rather than being impulsive. Also, I don’t think that I am willing to sacrifice what I like to do to “save” a relationship. In my opinion, I don’t think that more should be done to promote a show like this, because it is kind of shallow. Audience enjoy the moment obviously, but I don’t think one can get much out of it afterwards. The story developed too fast without making much sense, and the ending where Alex has to give up collecting to save his relationship with Juliet is not worth appraising as well.

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