WHEN YOUR KIDS FLY THE NEST...THEN RETURN ALONE TOGETHER

WHEN YOUR KIDS FLY THE NEST...THEN RETURN ALONE TOGETHER

COURTESY PHOTO Carrie Lund and Tad Ingram in "Alone Together."

When kids leave home, it's a bittersweet experience, a mixture of pride and sadness, parents say.

Suddenly, they're gone, and you and your spouse finally have the house to yourselves.

After the whirlwind of soccer games, dance lessons, football practice and theater camp, you're suddenly alone with the person you married so many years ago. Who is this stranger?

Is this the person I married?

What's next for us?

"Alone Together," playing at Florida Repertory Theatre Feb. 13 through March 8, looks at this transition period that takes place in so many couples' lives.

Helene (Carrie Lund) and her husband George (Tad Ingram) see their three sons off — but then, like filial boomerangs, they return home, along with a young woman.

"This show's reflecting everything that's going on in my life," says Ms. Lund during a rehearsal break. During cast discussions, she says, she's always saying "Matt did this" or "Julia did that," referring to her 18-year-old-son and 17-year-old daughter.

The cast of "Alone Togeether."

With a son in college and a daughter finishing high school, Ms. Lund and her husband, Florida Rep Producing Artistic Director Bob Cacioppo, "have to contemplate our life after they leave. The play is very true to life," she says.

Mr. Ingram can also relate. He and his wife have a daughter, Hannah, who's almost 30 — the age of his eldest son in the show.

In the play, his wife accuses him of being a part-time parent.

"As an actor, I was a part-time parent all the time," he says. "I was out on the road a lot. That was my job," he says, comparing his profession to that of an athlete who needs to travel constantly.

"Is this part of their nature or learned culture? The play is suggesting that this is rather typical, a common occurrence and experience."

Ms. Lund says that she likes that the characters aren't "one- or two-dimensional; we have our own fears and insecurities that come out in these characters. Moving onto a new stage, having the fear that I won't have my children as part of my job….What do I fill that void with? That's a fear I think that mothers have in common."

COURTESY PHOTO "Alone Together" opens at the Florida Rep on Friday, Feb. 13.

"Alone Together," she says, examines a couple on the threshold of the next chapter of their marriage.

Now that their kids are out of the house, they have to deal with each other. The moment of truth has come.

As Helene says to George, "No kids as a buffer in between. No shirking our problems because they've dumped one on us we could hide behind."

The couple, says Ms. Lund, recognizes that they have cracks in their marriage, and have to work to mend and recreate their relationship.

The play is serious, she says.

"It doesn't have the constant gag-gaggag," Mr. Ingram says.

But the play is very much a comedy.

Mr. Ingram likens it to the '80s TV sitcoms, the shows that came after Norman Lear's groundbreaking shows.

"There would be a moment in them that would break your heart," he says. "This makes us laugh at things that we all understand."

Comedy is laughing at a bad thing and discovering what's comical about it, Ms. Lund interjects.

"Someone slipping on a banana peel and not getting hurt is funny," Mr. Ingram explains. "Someone slipping on a banana peel and getting hurt isn't funny. The tension comes from: is it OK to laugh? Are they going to get hurt?"

Yet some tension on stage doesn't get resolved right away, Ms. Lund says.

She's played wives in two previous plays this season, married to a senator in "Born Yesterday" and to banker in "Indian Blood." (She also played a single woman in "Dancing at Lughnasa," which just closed.)

Audiences may remember Mr. Ingram from productions in previous seasons, when he appeared in "Proof," "Mousetrap," and "Fools."

The cast also includes Jason Parrish, John Robert Warren, and Trey Gerrald as the sons. Mary-Margaret Roberts plays a young woman, a friend of one of the sons who shows up on the parents' doorstep.

Florida Rep Associate Artistic Director Chris Clavelli, who appeared in "Born Yesterday," "Indian Blood" and "Dancing at Lughnasa" this season, is directing.

Part of a director's job is making the actors feel safe, the two say, and Mr. Clavelli does that.

"He encourages us to discover things on stage," Mr. Ingram says. "It's a delight to work with him. He is such a fun guy to work with. But we get down to nuts and bolts too. It's almost like a therapy session."

The title, "Alone Together," is significant, he says.

"It suggests that just because people are together, it doesn't mean that they might not be very much alone. The playwright, Lawrence Roman, reconstitutes the family to turn up the heat on the relationship, to get it boiling again.

"So the lid will blow off, off it's going to boil and become a good stew."

if you go

"Alone Together" >> When: Feb. 13 - March 8 >> Where: Florida Repertory Theatre, Bay Street between Hendry and Jackson in the Arcade Theatre in downtown Fort Myers >>Cost: $38, $34, $20 >>Information: Call 332- 4488 or www.FloridaRep.org