Many of us have dreams of living a life less ordinary with very varied results. In Sheila Duncan’s one woman play ‘A Solitary Choice’, the Seynour’s final BITE production of the year, Tamara Lee plays thirties something woman Ruth who feels that deep inside she’s in a rut in her life. She’s in an unexciting marriage, has a young child and a mundane job in finance.

It has reached the point in her life when she is doing an Oscar Wilde from ‘The Importance Of Being Earnest’ and has made up an imaginary Bunbury character whom she goes to visit every month. Ruth’s convinced that her husband doesn’t even miss her when she goes away!

The inevitable happens, Ruth has an affair. She falls for a South American musician, a flautist. She finally feels alive again. There are just a few issues…She falls pregnant, and her boyfriend disappears back to Bolivia. What choice is she going to make? Everything turns on her decision as to whether she’s going to have the baby or not. How will her husband react? Especially as Christopher is spending a lot of time with their very attractive female real estate agent.

Where Duncan’s play excelled is in its vivid depiction of the world of a pregnant woman. The excitement…the way it energises a woman…the instinctiveness…the physiological changes…the way the body automatically maps out the next 8 months.
The bond that Ruth establishes straight away with the new life inside her. She can see her clearly in her mind’s eye.

Tamara Lee gives a compelling performance as Ruth. She only has a few props to work with, the primary one being her travel bag. Music was a strong force in the production with a poetic score. The final scene will touch many a heart.

Sheila Duncan’s ‘A Solitary Choice’, sensitively directed by Michael Allen, opened at the downstairs theatre at the Seymour Centre, corner City Road and Cleveland Street, Chippendale, on Thursday 11th November and runs until Saturday 27th November, 2010.