Same Time Next Year

Same Time Next Year is a 1975 romantic comedy play by Bernard Slade. The plot focuses on two people, married to others, who meet for a romantic tryst once a year for two dozen years. New Jersey accountant George Peters and Oakland housewife Doris meet at a Northern California inn in February 1951. They have an affair, and agree to meet once a year, despite the fact both are married to others and have six children between them.

Over the course of the next 24 years, they develop an emotional intimacy deeper than what one would expect to find between two people meeting for a clandestine relationship just once a year. During the time they spend with each other, they discuss the births, deaths, and marital problems each is experiencing at home, while they adapt themselves to the social changes affecting their lives.

When I first read the play I related to it on a very deep level. It depicts the bitter-sweet reality of our society and individuals. The play makes you laugh, cry, gasp, sigh and takes you back to different emotional stages of your life, where you find yourself relating to moments in a surprising way, and missing people that never were. A friendship like what is shown in the play is something that we crave for in our lives, and it is perhaps that unfulfilled yearning which makes this play even more beautiful. Heartfelt thank you to Katha Ghera for putting up this play, and allowing me to exercise my inner desires. I have begun to understand that theatre is the only place where I can give freedom to my imagination. This would have not been possible without my favourite on stage couple, Divya Dev and Akanchha. Your love, support and encouragement is what keeps us going.