HQ Review: “Alone Time” by Laura Roth
The soundscape of rain tumbles down from the vaulted ceiling above. Laura Roth sits alone on a chair facing the audience, clothed in dark sweat pants and a gray hoodie. Though the audience has just arrived to this place, Roth’s physical temperament feels as though she has been in this chair all day. The creative stimulus for this solo work, Alone Time, was originally born out of Roth’s experience of the pandemic. Though as time passed, it has broadened to capture how spending time alone has shaped her. With that in mind, this scene feels easily digestible as to what is causing Roth unease. As she sits, she begins to readjust herself, shuffling between different positions, emanating a mood of boredom and frustration. The outside world rumbles on while she is forced to confront this reality.
Roth doesn't allow the piece to languish here too long, and soon enough, her state of ennui evolves. Amidst her isolation, the chair becomes an impetus for creation, a dance partner if you will. She climbs over its arms, scrambles beneath its body, and stoically planks across its frame. Even though the accompanying music is somber in tone, there is a humorous quality to her investigations. This contrast exhibits that even amidst the monotony around her, Roth is able to cultivate a spirit of creativity.
This air of comedy comes to a climax as Taylor Swift’s “The Prophecy” begins to play. As the music quips along, Roth casually lip syncs to the lyrics. Her torso and limbs bounce in tandem with the relaxed spunk of its beat. As she bops, she waters the various house plants that are on stage with her. The tongue-in-cheek of this moment elicits numerous laughs from the audience as Roth fully commits to its comedic hyperbole. Throughout the larger work, both in its goofy times and serious, she inflects her performance with this kind of physicalized emotionality. Not in a way that comes across as over indulgent, but in a manner that clearly communicates the caricature of the work.
The piece comes to a head as Roth gets swept away in a sprightly movement phrase that is juxtaposed against the melancholic sounds of piano. Roth skitters upstage, hops lightly, and adorns her limbs in long presentational lines. She flutters through this series of movements while facing away from the audience, then suddenly breaks from it and looks back at the audience as unease envelops her body. But before long, she returns to the brisk series of movements that again collapse into weariness. This pattern repeats itself multiple times. In this section it feels as though I am watching her perform for an audience, but it is an audience I am not a part of. I am merely witnessing her from behind a backstage curtain. And Roth is trying to convince herself that she is energized by this rapid succession of movement, rather than fatigued by its performativity. By her fourth effort, she crumbles, cuts the phrase short, and succumbs to the languid energy in her body. This dramatic peek reminds me of a piece of writing I saw in Roth’s Creative Process Art Gallery, a collection of journals and photos displayed for the audience in the performance venue’s lobby. In one piece, Roth writes that “Performing on stage is joy, connection, fulfilling. Performing in life is fake, draining, isolating.” Even though Roth was performing on stage in this moment, it felt to be an encapsulation of how she feels when she must perform in life, inauthentic and exhausting. A moment that ultimately conveyed the value that time spent in solitude can carry.
As this ending putters itself to a soft hearted close, I am reminded of the weight of simplicity that a piece like this carries. Sometimes I want to listen to lyrics that bury themselves in ostentatious philosophizing, but then other days I want to dramatically lip sync to Taylor Swift and let the joy of that be enough. Alone Time does not attempt to bury itself inside an alternative world of abstracted reality, but rather provides the audience with a space to easily perceive the journey that Roth has undergone. Remarking upon how solitude can be an experience marked with boredom and even pain, but can also transform itself into silliness, absurdity, and euphoria.