Confusions

Alan Ayckbourn

Five inter-linked one-act plays. London 1976
M3 F2 (minimum cast). A living-room, a bar, a restaurant, a marquee, a park.

These five short plays deal riotously, but with sharply pointed undertones, with the human dilemma of loneliness; a mother unable to escape from baby talk (Mother Figure), a disastrous fete (Gosforth's Fete), an unsuccessful seduction attempt (Drinking Companion), a fraught dinner encounter (Between Mouthfuls) and the final play, A Talk In The Park, sums up, with five self-immolated characters on park benches.

ISBN 0 573 11073 5

Mother Figure.

Neglected by philandering traveller husband Harry, Lucy has 'reverted' to being a total mother figure. She has three small children, she is always in dressing-gown and slippers, and doesn't answer the phone or doorbell. When neighbour Rosemary comes in through the back door to tell her that Harry has been trying to make contact, Lucy is unable to treat her as an adult. Rosemary's husband
Terry arrives, and Lucy's attitude is infectious; the couple quarrel, behave like, and are treated like, small children by Lucy, who successfully forces them to 'make up'.

Cast

Lucy
Rosemary
Terry

Drinking Companion.

Husband Harry tries to get young perfume demonstrator Paula up to his room. He succeeds in getting her tipsy, but the arrival of her more experienced friend Bernice puts paid to his pathetic seduction attempts.

Cast

Harry
Paula
Bernice
Waiter

Between Mouthfuls.

In the same hotel dining-room, the conversations of two couples are overheard by the waiter. Mrs Pearce is convinced her husband Walter, just back from Italy on business, has been having an affair. At another table, out of their sight, sit Walter' s job-obsessed employee Martin and wife Polly. She is so infuriated at Martin's lack of interest in her that she confesses her solo holiday was spent with boss Walter. The two women storm out, the two men meet and leave together, laughing and chatting.

Cast

Waiter
Pearce
Mrs Pearce
Martin
Polly

Gosforth's Fête.

Mrs Pearce is the guest speaker at a charity 'do' organized by whirlwind publican Gosforth. The event is a total shambles, with his helper Millie telling Gosforth she is pregnant by him and the news being inadvertently broadcast around the field on the PA system, much to the humiliation of her cubmaster fiancé Stewart. Rain, the Vicar, naughty cubs and an electrocuted Mrs Pearce put paid to the rest of the event.

Cast

Mrs Pearce
Milly Gosforth
Vicar
Stewart

A Talk in the Park.

Five characters on four park benches shift around and attempt to strike up a conversation with each other, only to be rebuffed. Total alienation is the result. Everybody wants somebody to dump on, nobody wants to be dumped upon.

Cast

Arthur
Beryl
Charles
Doreen
Ernest
Waiter