‘Two Strangers' is an homage and a rethinking of the rom-com
That perspective is an essential part of 'Two Strangers''s leading man, Dougal (Sam Tutty). Through the chipper Brit's eyes, New York is a fairy tale, the kind of place where meet-cutes happen atop the Empire State Building, rival booksellers fall in love over email, and one-handed bakers take Cher to the opera.
At the musical's start, Dougal, exhilarated, has just arrived in the city for the first time for the wedding of his father, whom he's never met. Waiting for him at the airport is the bride's sister, the flinty, cynical Brooklynite Robin (Christiani Pitts). Dougal hopes that she'll be his ticket to a true New York adventure, and he gets his wish when the pair is tasked with picking up and transporting the wedding cake across the city — the kind of forced proximity that inevitably turns two strangers into something more.
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This summer's run at the ART marks the North American debut of 'Two Strangers,' a milestone that still feels surreal to the musical's creators. 'If Jim and I had known that it would go this far, I don't think we would have ever attempted to write it out,' Buchan said with a laugh. When they set out to create the show in 2016, Buchan said, their goal was to write 'the smallest possible musical,' focusing on ordinary people over a short period of time. They landed on a proper two-hander, featuring only a pair of actors.
Jim Barne (writer and composer), Kit Buchan (writer and composer), Asmeret Ghebremichael (associate director and choreographer), and Tim Jackson (director and choreographer) at rehearsal.
Nile Scott Studios
But when Buchan and Barne brought director and choreographer Tim Jackson into the fold to bring their book and music to life, 'Two Strangers' suddenly started to feel a lot larger. Jackson (who is no stranger to small-but-mighty shows, having just choreographed Broadway's recent '
Jackson, in collaboration with the show's designer, Soutra Gilmour, worked out a way to stage 'Two Strangers' that would capture the scope and hum of their metropolitan setting while still keeping the focus on their two actors. The musical's clever, singular set is a turntable topped with a sprawling pile of suitcases, which can open to become pieces of furniture and other props representing locations within the city.
'It doesn't feel like a little boutique-chocolate-box mini musical,' Buchan said. 'It feels more fully-fledged than Jim and I ever could have dreamed.' And audiences' reactions weren't so mini either: The show's Off-West End and West End productions, in 2023 and 2024 respectively, were both extended due to popular demand. By the time 'Two Strangers' closed in London's West End last year, it had amassed a veritable fan base (in the process of reporting this story, I came across a 13-page Google Doc, made by a fan who saw the show six times, that describes 'Two Strangers' in painstaking detail for those who couldn't make it to the theater in person).
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One audience member, Buchan remembers, reported that they expected more actors to emerge at the end of the show for the curtain call — only to remember, with amazement, that the musical was performed by two actors alone.
Part of 'Two Strangers''s appeal for audiences is that it is a love letter to the immensely popular rom-com, a genre that Buchan, Barne, and Jackson have long adored. The show's tight two-character focus is inspired by Richard Linklater's intimate 'Before' trilogy, and the character Dougal is fueled by a balanced diet of American romantic comedies, from 'While You Were Sleeping,' to '
But the team is also careful to note that 'Two Strangers'
is no simple love story. 'I think the generation that grew up watching very open-eyed rom-coms now has a slightly different relationship to them,' Barne said. 'We still want rom-coms, but we also want a tiny bit more reality stirred into it.' So, Buchan said, they had Dougal and Robin come together at 'the intersection where fantasy and reality meet' — where cinematic romance crashes into the truths of contemporary life.
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And, while there are undeniable sparks between Dougal and Robin, the 'rom' in this case refers less to the characters' relationship with each other and more to their feelings about themselves. 'It's about these two people learning to love themselves a little bit more,' Jackson said. 'It's about falling in love with yourself by being in the orbit of someone else.'
In other words: Your favorite rom-com may have taken you to this New York before — but don't be so sure that you know exactly where 'Two Strangers' is headed.
TWO STRANGERS (CARRY A CAKE ACROSS NEW YORK)
At ART's Loeb Drama Center, 64 Brattle St, Cambridge. May 20-June 29. Tickets start at $43. americanrepertorytheater.org
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An exhibition on the top floor explained how Korean walls were once made by hand with straw and mud. On the ground floor, displays incorporated the work of contemporary artists with traditional Korean spaces. After several days of looking at art made after the 1950s, it was refreshing to be around such literal, but beautiful, objects and ideas. Jiwon Park's Nature Being Things, on display at the Arumjigi Foundation. I returned to my hotel to get ready for one final Frieze dinner, hosted by Stone Island, the Milan-based fashion brand that is enormously popular in South Korea. That evening, I was served champagne on a hilltop overlooking Seoul. The city glittered around me. The menu stated that our dinner's produce was from an organic farm in Surisan Provincial Park, some 27 miles south. The delicately plated courses included dainty slices of aged Korean beef with Parmesan fondue. 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