The French word ‘Retrouvailles’ describes the complex feelings that arrive when two lovers are reunited after a very long time apart. In one moment, pangs of confusion, arousal, anger, shock, lust and even agitation are ignited when long-lost lover's eyes meet. The years between their last kiss and the present moment seem to have all been a dream, or nightmare. The same magnetic force that brought them together years ago is again pulling their bodies and souls towards each other, whether they like it or not.
Why did the two lovers part? What came of their lives? Who do they love now? The circumstance itself contains sufficient epic grace and bittersweet melancholia. Highly prolific and award-winning playwright/director Bill Sterritt has let his imagination run beautifully wild on this very subject. In his play The Wreck of the Spanish Armada, part of the New York International Fringe Festival, we are introduced to his subjects, Dr. Anne Cloudy and Drake. Dr. Anne Cloudy thinks the other to be a stranger. Drake, however, knows they were wistful lovers thirty years ago. How could one lover know the truth and the other lover not even recognize her old flame's face, you may well ask? Sterritt uses thoughtful and well-timed exposition, witty multi-media, melodic language and the backdrop of a hotel suite on the right bank of Paris's River Seine to scaffold his story and his drastic, though elegant, denouement.
Laura Emanuel plays the gorgeously complicated Dr. Anne Cloudy with the smolder of a young Lauren Bacall, the mystique of a foreign princess and the care of a veteran actor. Bruno Oliver as Drake, a thieving leader of African pirates and now American enemy number one, gives a heartfelt and rich performance as he layers the character of Drake with enough endearment that one can imagine oneself easily being charmed by a criminal.
Both Emanuel and Oliver handle the intricate language with delicacy and naturalness. Both bring Sterritt's rapturous story to life with love and tenderness. Both take us on a voyage that the heart can barely endure.
