Perfect Timing synopsis

Michael is thirty-five years old. He dreamed of becoming an architect, but is now struggling to make a living designing houses. This is a recent breakthrough. He has spent much of the previous seventeen years putting his life together, working in odd jobs after being derailed in his career plans. He has a unique ability to analyse relationships rationally, but his calm demeanour makes him appear to be less emotionally involved than he really is.

Angela is also thirty-five. For the past twelve years, she has worked as a commercial artist in a British advertising agency. While she didn't suffer Michael's career setbacks, she has found little satisfaction in what she has accomplished. In the past, she has mistaken Michael's calm exterior for a lack of passion, and was frightened off by the prospect of falling too deeply in love with him. Her disastrous marriage to a man whom she loved only physically and her detached relationship with her teenage son have since removed some of her fear of allowing herself these feelings.

The action of Perfect Timing takes place in real time. The characters' memories are being relived in the here and now. Not only are the memories themselves dramatic, but so is the act of remembering.

While other characters are referred to, only Michael and Angela actually appear on stage. (Richie is "invisible", while Sheilagh is always on the other end of a telephone.)

The setting is a very realistic house under construction. Within this set are props to suggest a school hallway, a campsite, a maternity ward, etc. These may be hidden behind walls or in trap doors, or simply be implied with props. The rear wall is partially covered by unfinished wallboard, with studs and wiring exposed. There is some furniture, including an old chesterfield, and a drafting table. Off-stage, over the Overture, we hear sawing and hammering. Angela, age thirty-five, enters. Michael, who is building a house, is not entirely happy when he sees her, afraid of "what will happen When I See Her Eyes". Out of courtesy, he offers her a cup of tea, and she tells him that she is in town for her brother's wedding. We learn from their conversation that Michael has not replied to her letters over the past few years. As they begin to remember their past, Angela recalls the crush she had on him when they were ten years old, and he called her Angelwings. This sets the style for the show, as the characters drift back in time, reliving the pains of adolescence. (Simply Tragic)

A set of lockers appears from out of the back wall, to suggest the corridor of a high school. Angela meets Michael again at age seventeen, and he's no longer the snotty kid who ignored her. She's on the verge of breaking up with her boyfriend Tommy, and he offers the "male perspective" on how to keep him. However, he shows such understanding that by the end of their conversation, she has forgotten all about Tommy. Still, Michael treats her like a buddy, and she is soon distracted when she hears a piano from a nearby classroom. It's Richie (who is unseen to the audience), the school's reclusive misfit. As she mimes walking him home, (Something in the Air), they become fast friends. On the telephone later, Angela is clearly using the situation to make Michael jealous, but it's not working.

The scene shifts to Michael standing in front of his locker. (High School Mornings) He wants to sample life, but without a girl on his mind.

Angela invites Richie to a friend's dinner party, but with Michael driving, he is easily ignored. Only much later do they realise that he has disappeared. When Richie doesn't turn up for school the next day, Angela is worried. (On Monday Morning) She and Michael drive to a distant campground, an old haunt of Richie's. She searches through the woods, calling his name. Suddenly she screams as we see the silhouette of a body hanging from a tree. As Michael comforts her, they are at last coming together.

On a skiing trip a few weeks later, Angela has broken her leg. Michael plays the hero to the hilt. As he gives her a skiing lesson, she feels herself falling for him. (Perfect Timing) This raises the question -- what to do now? In a telephone conversation, we gather that Sheilagh, Angela's best friend, thinks she knows the answer - it's time to "do it". Michael's attitude, revealed in a conversation with his (unseen) father, is more reticent. They separately express their somewhat conflicting attitudes toward sex. (Wanting More) Standing before a mirror, Angela begins to change her appearance in order to be more alluring, but Michael is cooly unmoved. (Beautiful People) Finally, Michael's family invites Angela to join them on a camping trip. The pressure on her is great, but Michael assures her that she's One of the Family. Angela jumps to some conclusions, but when they find themselves alone by the campfire and, in a hysterically awkward way Angela broaches the subject of sex, Michael dismisses her approach outright. Taking this as a rejection, mixed with the guilt she feels over Richie's death, she tells Sheilagh of a new boyfriend named Chuck with a "bon derriere." (Miracle) On the night of their high school graduation, Michael tells her, "You made me believe that it was me who you were in love with." (You Never Asked)

They don't see each other for a couple of years. Angela and Chuck have married, and she pays a surprise visit to Michael. Now very pregnant, she claims that Chuck is off "screwing some housewife". (He Touched Me) In fact, she is in labour, and has deliberately timed her visit in order to force Chuck to go into the delivery room with her, in Chuck's stead.

Back in the present, Angela tells Michael that Chuck was, in fact, never unfaithful. He left Angela shortly after the baby's birth, telling her he never wanted to see her again. She moved to England, where she became a successful commercial artist with a West End ad agency. Michael, who had planned to be an architect, has suffered a career setback as a result of what Angela has been told was a motorbike accident. It is now clear that Angela wants Michael back, but he backs away. What we learn - but not Angela - is the truth about Michael's "accident". The night of their graduation, after she spurned him, his best friend Pete found him in the gym showers with both his wrists slashed lengthways. (Miracle - Reprise) This derailed his career plans, but gradually he has begun to rebuild his life, and is setting up a business designing homes. His conclusion - "I know what it is to live alone, and I know that I can do it if I have to." She replies, "Same here -- but does that mean we have to?" He recalls her telling him years before that they were just friends, and that was all they would ever be. Angela says, "Tell you what. Let's take the just out of being friends." They embrace, tentatively at first, then with more feeling, as the curtain falls.