Old Times Summary

Old Times Summary

Act One

The play begins with Deeley and Kate, a married couple who live somewhere in the English countryside, talking about her old friend and former roommate Anna who is coming to visit.

Anna arrives and she and Deeley reminisce about their experiences with Kate with him telling her about how they first met seeing the film 'Odd Man Out' at the cinema. She responds with a story about coming home to find Kate sitting silently beside a crying man who then climbed into her bed and lay in her lap. Kate decides to take a bath and Anna offers to help her; however, she refuses.

Act Two

Deeley reveals to Anna that he knows her and has seen her before at a pub where he bought her drinks and stared up her skirt. She seems perplexed by this but Deeley continues to describe how they were joined by her female friend. Anna doesn't confirm whether this truly happened or not. They begin to engage in an odd and somewhat sensual discussion about how to best get Kate in the bath and how to best get her dry afterwards.

Kate returns from her bath and Deely and Anna seem to compete for her attention, singing 'They Can't Take That Away From Me' to her for the second time. Anna gives a similar account of a time where a man once stared at her skirt and coldly tells Deeley that she remembers him well. Kate neither confirms nor denies any of these stories but tells Anna that she remembers her being dead in her bed and covered in dirt, supposedly trying to imitate Kate's smile, and how the body was gone when a man visited. Kate then tried to suffocate this man with soil but he resisted, resulting in a marriage proposal.

Deeley begins to sob and goes to lie in Kate's lap, mimicking the scene from Anna's story.

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