Starlings on the Green (Norwich)

Starlings on the Green is a one-act two-hander play by Hamilton Wilson, written to complement his new version of Ibsen's A Doll's House for this year's Hostry Festival in Norwich and serving as a curtain-raiser for it.

Two people come regularly to a park, one of the few green spaces in their crowded urban environment. On this occasion they share a bench overlooking the children's play area. Rory (Paul Goldsmith) is separated from his wife – their dispute was initially over a loan she had taken out – and misses his daughters.

Alice (Lucinda Bray) has been all set to marry her long-time live-in boyfriend, but is now concerned over the implications of such a formal commitment; will they be equals in this new situation, or will he dominate? Overhead the migratory birds of the title swoop and twitter in their own seemingly purposeful way.

Hamilton catches the way in which casual conversation between strangers can reveal aspects of a personality which are masked from that person's closest associates through familiarity. In Robin Watson's production it becomes clear that these two articulate and literate people might well meet again. Or perhaps not. But then, they are (in their own fashion) part of a flock.