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Fantasy/Comedy. Irving Elman. 6 men, 5 women. Unit Set Irving Elman is dwelling on the plight of the American businessman
who once had dreams of gay and adventurous independence, and now
finds himself bound to a suburban family and a routine job. In a
series of short, and for the most part, thoroughly engaging family
scenes, he jolts his businessman into an awareness that he has wasted
a good many years and a ridiculous amount of energy on idle and unrealistic
mooning. Play. Timberlake Wertenbaker Tess, Nina and April are old friends reunited one hot summer weekend to celebrate Tess's fortieth birthday. With their partners in tow, a feeling of dissatisfaction and unease seizes the group. Is it too late to have children? Were they wrong to focus so much on work'? The second act finds Tess and Robert resorting to the fertility industry to conceive, while Nina and Hugh become embroiled in the corrupt bureaucracy of an East European country as they try to adopt a baby. Comedy. Jack Popplewell. 6 men, 3 women. Interior. Joe Henderson, a hard-working but rather tight-fisted widower, lives
with his daughter, Mary, in the grimy, English mill town of Brimley.
Joe's two married sisters, Alice and Jane, also reside in Brimley,
as have all of their family - with the exception of three black sheep
uncles who were asked to leave town some fifty years earlier. But
now one of the uncles, Robert Oldfreld, has written to announce his
intention of coming back to Brimley to end his days and Joe, learning
that the old man has amassed a fortune, decides to offer him a home.
His sisters are easily hoodwinked into letting Joe take over the "family
obligation," until they, too, find out about Uncle Robert's money
- at which point the bickering begins. When the old gentleman arrives
he finds that he is to be shuttled back and forth from home to home,
but the mood of energetic cordiality rapidly dissipates when it is
discovered that their guest is not Uncle Robert at all, but his ne'er-do-well
brother, Emmanuel. A promise being a promise Joe takes the old man
in, but begins to fume as his money, his liquor, his cigars and his
wardrobe are blithely usurped by his boarder. Joe has had all about
he can stand when Uncle Emmanuel obligingly falls down the steps
of a pub and expires - but excitement flares up again when the real
Uncle Robert arrives shortly afterwards. Again the competition for
hospitality (and anticipated inheritance) begins, much to the increasing
distaste of Joe's daughter, Mary, who wants only to marry her fiancé,
Peter (Jane's adopted son), and leave Brimley and her petty relatives
forever. Mary and Peter dream of buying a farm in Cornwall, but they
have no, money and Peter is saddled with the running of his foster
father's mill. But Uncle Robert (who is really not rich at all) saves
the day by deftly swindling the necessary money from his avaricious
kin, after which he dies and leaves it to the lovers. So all works
out happily - marred only by the announcement that uncle number three
has just arrived from Australia! Comedy. Tom Dulack. 5 men, 1 woman. Interior. The action occurs in an Italian restaurant owned by a successful
mobster and managed by his beautiful unmarried daughter. When the
daughter's former college professor arrives to ask for financial
backing for a play he's written about a murder, the fun begins. The
three main Mafiosi are intrigued with the idea of producing a play.
The daughter becomes enamored of the playwright, who is delighted
to have the family's support. His bubble is burst when he discovers,
through the "accidental" death by train of a lesser thug, that his
backers are gangsters. In this madcap situation, murder and menace
are served up with plenty of pasta and laughter. Play. Hugh Whitemore, based on the book Alan Turing: The Enigma by
Alan Hodges This compassionate play is the story of Alan Turing, who broke the
code in two ways: He cracked the German Enigma code during World
War II (for which he was decorated by Churchill) and also shattered
the English code of sexual discretion with his homosexuality (for
which he was arrested on a charge of gross indecency). Whitemore's
play, shifting back and forth in time, seeks to find a connection
between the two events. Breaking the Prairie Wolf Code Play Lavonne Mueller. 2 men, 4 women. Unit set The time is 1866, the setting a wagon train moving slowly and perilously
westward across the American frontier. Helen, the pampered young
widow of an army colonel, and her 14-year old daughter, Amy, are
hoping for a new and better life in California. Used to the amenities
of a refined Eastern upbringing, Helen tries bravely to adapt to
the rigors of the journey, but their misfortunes multiply as they
lose some of their precious food supply; Amy's clothes, put out to
dry after she falls in a river, and blown away in a desert storm;
and the delicate Amy falls ill with ague. The gruff trailmaster cannot
leave his responsibilities to help them; the awkward attentions of
a young love-smitten suitor who courts Amy before riding off to join
the army only deepen Helen's distress at how far they have distanced
themselves from their old life; and even the kind attentions of a
wise old black "conjure woman" can do little to alleviate their plight.
As Amy grows weaker it is clear that she and her mother can no longer
keep up with the others and, as the play ends, they are left behind
in the vast emptiness of the frontier, stoically facing the slim
hope of rescue as the final moments of Amy's young life ebb away. Play. Stephen Poliakoff Stephen Poliakoff's intriguing and moving play is inspired by his
own family's experience in Russia. Father spends his time (and government
money) in trying to record sound on to film. With the death of Lenin,
however, the research must be abandoned and the family is forced
to flee. The play follows the material and spiritual adjustments
the upper-middle-class Pesiakoff family have to make when forced
to live for years in a railway carriage. Play. Frank Vickery To add to her own and her family's problems, Iris nurtures an intensely
possessive love for her only child, Simon. Simon comes home, accompanied
by a girlfriend, Deryn, and Iris's joy quickly turns to jealousy
and suspicion. Confronted with an increasingly difficult situation
Simon finally announces that he and Deryn are married and expecting
a baby. Iris cannot be reconciled to the news and the play closes
with Iris alone, her world shattered, unable to acknowledge her own
folly. Comedy. Peter Coke Dame Beatrice houses a collection of middle-aged 'guests', plus
Lily her maid. To repay Dame Beatrice for giving her a job despite
her criminal past, Lily presents her with a mink stole filched from
the next flat. The Brigadier deploys his 'troops' to return the fur.
The whole campaign is so invigorating that they decide to retain
this excitement in their lives by pinching furs and giving the proceeds
to charities. Play. Willy Russell Three married couples, 'superior' council-house dwellers, regard
themselves as a close-knit family, a team, despite their generally
concealed jealousies. When one of their daughters, Sandra, announces
she is pregnant and intends to live unmarried with her student lover,
Tim, the news explodes like an atom bomb. Tim himself is unhappy
about the arrangement and tries to make Sandra realise she now has
responsibilities, but she walks out on them all. Play. Olwen Wymark, based on the novel The Women's Decameron by
Julia Vozneskaya It is International Women's Day in Moscow, 1985. Isolated in a run-down
maternity hospital ward seven women tell their own violent and disturbing
stories of rape, abuse and oppression. Despite the depressing nature
of these stories, however, the enormous strength, vitality and humour
of the women comes through. Finally overcoming the patriarchal, authoritative
hospital system, their escape is set against the wider background
of Gorbachev coming to power in this moving play. |