THE COLD REMINDER

About the show

Routine and Facade: In his novel A Single Man, published in 1964, Christopher Isherwood depicts a day in the life of university lecturer George Falconer. The profound loneliness of this gay man following the death of his partner serves as the starting point for young American author and director Sam Max’s adaptation, which pays homage to the original whilst also moving beyond it. Questions about finding a stable sense of self, about social acceptance and belonging in increasingly complex social spaces remain as relevant as ever. Sam Max writes about his reading of A Single Man: “In the novel, we see the inner workings of a man who is desperately seeking connections with others, yet at the same time is struggling with grief and internalised gay shame. This leads to self-sabotage and keeps him from precisely those connections he so desperately desires. His encounters become a kind of hall of mirrors from which he cannot escape. Wherever he goes, he sees his lost dreams and his lost love, and he struggles to rewrite the narrative of his life for himself. At the same time, we see a portrait of a society that is homophobic both in latent, microaggressive ways and in extreme, direct ways. My adaptation focuses not only on sketching a character portrait of George through his relationships, but also on creating dramatic tension by exploring death and bereavement within America’s gay community.”