By Alan Jozwiak
What can you do with five lemons?
Apart from making a refreshing pitcher of lemonade (or whiskey lemonade if you want to kick things up a notch), there is not much to do with a bunch of lemons–unless you are trying to burn through your number of allowable words you can use in a day.
In the play Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons (hereafter referred to as Lemons x5), playwright Sam Steiner has one of his characters recite a similar litany of lemons. This play is making its regional premiere at Falcon Theatre.
The Story
The premise of Lemons x5 is simple: Bernadette (Natalie Hayslett) and Oliver (R. Graham Rogers), a lawyer and musician respectively, meet at a funeral in a pet cemetery and fall in love. Their love is put to the test when Great Britain enacts a law limiting the number of words someone can say or write to a mere 140 words per day.
Trying to communicate with your beloved when you have to state the number of words left before speaking could put a strain on even the firmest relationship. In the case of Bernadette and Oliver, this word ban leads to some unexpected consequences.
Strong Direction
Directing this two-hander is Liz Carman, who does a wonderful job distinguishing between scenes before the 140-word limit and during the 140-word limit time through the use of different lighting and special sound effects. Carman chooses to stage this play on a bare stage and she allows her actors to utilize every inch of that stage with great effect.
It is hard to talk about individual actors in this piece separately since they both operate together to convey the arc of this relationship as it goes from before the 140-word limit to during the 140-words limit. Hayslett and Rogers do a beautiful job working off each other and they are strong in conveying all the ups and downs of their character’s relationship. Their acting is believable, poignant, and (when they run out of words for a day), physically expressive.
It is amazing to watch them go through these quick montages of them meeting up after work and comparing how many words they have available for one another. Hayslett and Rogers do it with drill precision and it is impressive to watch. It is one of the high points of the show.
Themes
Written in the wake of the Brexit Referendum removing Britain from the European Union (like the 140 word a day rule, it was something no one thought would pass). Lemons x5 also has a social and political agenda.
It has nods to class issues, political repression of public speech, and the politics of political protest, just to name a few. These issues can easily get overlooked because the relationship of this couple takes center stage. However, these issues complete the picture of a dysfunctional Britain being painted through this play.
This play premiered in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival as a 60-minute vehicle. It was expanded to 85 minutes for its London West End production. Carman wisely chose the longer script, which brings more coherence to their relationship storyline and is easier for audiences to digest. While it took me about ten minutes to get into the rhythm of the play, I appreciate this play’s unusual way of telling a story of a relationship.
Conclusion
Lemons x5 is a rich play deserving of an initial viewing and possibly a second viewing to get at the deeper import of the theme. It is not a perfect script (the play never explains the monitoring of citizens to adhere to the 140 words, nor their punishment for exceeding or miscounting their allowed number of words). It is a script that raises questions that get you thinking. This is a must-see show for the more adventurous theatre-goer and for fans of Falcon Theatre. While you have to concentrate on what is being said throughout, the payoff for that concentration is worth it.
Tickets to Lemons…
Lemons x5 runs November 7 to 22, 2025 at Falcon Theatre in Newport. Click here for tickets. https://falcontheater.net/tickets/
