The Criterion Collection

Brief Encounter, that eternal model of restraint, is coming out of its shell in a play opening this week in New York. A touring production of the Cornwall-based company Kneehigh Theatre, this new-millennial Brief Encounter is a reimagining of both the David Lean classic film and Still Life, the Noel Coward one-act play on which it was based. The original story’s buttoned-down pas de deux between strangers who meet at a train station becomes just one element in an experimental, multicharacter deconstruction, which uses film, song, and whimsical special effects to buoy its tale of repressed love. Brief Encounter officially opens December 6 and runs through January 3 at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Dumbo, Brooklyn. Tickets are now available online.