Finally, the play comes full circle, and we are back in the Botanic Gardens. What a journey we have been on since we first found Lyra Belacqua (Anna Maxwell Martin) and Will Parry (Dominic Cooper) on this bench under this tree. Of all the separations these two have had to face this is the hardest. To save their own worlds, and the many, many others they have encountered, they must close up the windows between worlds and destroy the subtle knife.
Part one of the final performance is the most heartbreaking of all, since no sooner have they discovered their love for each other than they learn they must say goodbye forever. They vow to return every year, on midsummer's day at midnight to this very spot, but remain in their separate worlds. Each hesitates, but the outcome is not in doubt. As they stare at each other for the last time through the window between their worlds, the Angel Balthamos, who has known what it is to lose the one you love, tells Will: “You must close it.”
And he does.
In
Part two, we return to the present day in the Botanic Gardens. In their parallel but separate Oxfords, Will and Lyra speak with one voice, and end the story.