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Cliffhanger
Comedy/Thriller. James Yaffe. 3 men, 2 women. Interior. Henry Lowenthal, after a long tenure as professor of philosophy
at a small western college, is looking forward to being appointed
to an endowed chair so he and his wife can enjoy their golden years
with honor and dignity. But their plans are given a rude jolt when
his successor, a vindictive and ruthlessly ambitious young woman;
informs him that she is not recommending him for the chair - an act
of such calculated cruelty that the usually gentle professor seizes
a bust of Socrates and strikes his tormentor a fatal blow. Thereafter,
as Henry and his wife plot a foolproof way to dispose of the body,
complications arise in the form of a rather sinister young student
who is about to flunk out of school (unless his grade is changed)
and who happened to witness the professor's violent action. Add in
a suspicious police lieutenant and you have all the ingredients for
a series of suspenseful, unexpected and frequently, funny developments,
leading to a denouement which will catch everyone by surprise. Play. Moss Hart. Based on Edgar Mittelholzer's novel, Shadows Move Among Them. 8 men, 5 women. Unit Set A family of missionaries live in the jungles of British Guiana, where they have worked out an unconventional philosophy of life based on a practical compromise with civilization. Religion and morality are tempered with humour and tolerance. To this happy household comes Gregory Hawke, a young man who suffers from various complexes and neuroses. He joins the family, hoping that their simple way of life will cure him. He falls in love with one of the daughters and ultimately takes her with him after his recovery. His relations with the younger daughter, while helpful in enabling her to grow from childhood into adulthood, are more complex and revealing. The bald plot gives one no idea of the rich complexity of the situations nor of the charm and excitement of many of the scenes. The basis of the philosophy of the play is that genuine love and affection go far toward solving some of the problems of modern civilization. Stephen Jeffreys Elizabeth I is tottering at death's door. Conspirators are everywhere.
Lucius Bodkin, an Elizabethan stand-up comedian, becomes unwillingly
involved in the political skulduggery and jiggery-pokery surrounding
the ailing Queen. The result is a riotously funny satirical farce
offering some sharp parallels with our own times. First staged by
Paines Plough in 1990. Play. Samuel Adamson Henry watches. He watches Anne-who is helped or hindered by the older man in her life, the enigmatic Alec - as she tries to make it as an actor. And he watches Trevor, who hangs out in seedy clubs and his flat in Paddington, as he tries to make it as a poet. As the lives of the three interlock, they drift into a world of sexual and emotional confusion. Play. Simon Gray The part of Jasper is a challenge to the actor- a leading character
(played originally by Michael Redgrave) who sits immobile and silent
virtually throughout the play. He is the head of the bitter, strife-ridden
family who surround him and play out their quarrels, recriminations,
despair and weak resolutions, using him as a sort of confessor in
long, revelatory speeches. Play. Elizabeth Diggs. 3 men, 5 women. Interior. The scene is a country home in the Berkshire Mountains of New England,
where three generations of the Whitaker/Frye family have gathered
for the summer. Josephine Whitaker, the matriarch of the family,
still bustles about energetically tending her. garden and issuing
orders to the others, even though she has long since given the house
to her middle-aged daughter, Bess Frye, and her husband, Watson,
who is now a senior partner in the law firm founded by his late father-in-law.
Also present are the Frye children, three daughters and a teenaged
son, and Ira Bienstock, the unlikely lover of one of the Frye daughters,
who arrives uninvited but quickly ingratiates himself with Josephine
and the others. While concerned with family ties, and the tensions,
misunderstandings and good-natured bickering which arise from such
closeness the ultimate focus of the play is on Josephine, who is
edging into senility and, in the family's view, must no longer be
allowed to live alone. It is the resolution of this problem, which
so many must face in today's world, which provides the very believable
- and deeply moving - conclusion of this most human and genuinely
affecting play. Musical Documentary. Alan Plater 'A hymn of unqualified praise to the miners -a group of men who forged a revolutionary weapon without having revolutionary intent.' A golden wedding patty of an old pitman and his wife forms a springboard into reminiscence and reflection about the past. Originally written for the Newcastle Playhouse this play is one of the outstanding documentary musicals to emerge from the regional theatre in recent years. Play. Richard Everett Gerry believes his 23-year-old marriage is all right but wife Kate
feels differently! Returning home after a disastrous visit to the
theatre, ruined by Gerry's lively mother, Mary, Gerry and Kate attempt
to salvage the evening at a local restaurant, but even that ends
in a profiterole-throwing fight. Daughter Louise and her boyfriend
Julian are key players in this light comedy of marital mishap and
mid-life crisis, as are Mary and her beau, Roy. Patrick Mather 2 men, 2 women. Unit set Four lives intertwine over the course of four and a half years in
this densely plotted, stinging look at modern love and betrayal.
Dan, an obituary writer, meets Alice, a stripper, after an accident
in the street. Eighteen months later, they are a couple and Dan has
written a novel inspired by Alice. While posing for his book jacket
cover, Dan meets Anna, a photographer. He pursues her but she rejects
his advances despite their mutual attraction. Larry, a dermatologist, "meets" Dan
in an internet chat room. Dan, obsessing over Anna, pretends to be
her and has cybersex with Larry. They arrange to meet the next day
at an aquarium. Larry arrives and so too, coincidentally, does the
real Anna. This sets up a series of pass-thelover scenes in which
this quartet struggle to find intimacy but cant seem to get closer. Ghost Play. Tennessee Williams The play opens in an asylum where Zelda Fitzgerald is being treated for mental disorder. Her husband, Scott, visits her, and this leads to a series of flashbacks in which details of their lives, in particular those concerning Zelda's attempts to achieve self-expression, are enacted. Cloud Nine.Play. Caryl Churchill Written for Joint Stock, this theatre company's workshop for the
play was 'sexual politics', thus giving Caryl Churchill the idea
for her parallel between colonial and sexual oppression. Act I takes
place in Victorian Africa, whilst Act II is set in modern London.
Much interplay is made of gender and colour: for example, Clive,
the white settler, has a black servant, Joshua, who is played by
a white because he wants to be what the whites want him to be. Hilarious
and thought-provoking. Play.
Michael Frayn The place is Cuba where two English journalists, Owen and Mara,
find themselves on a fact-finding mission, researching a story for
rival colour supplements. The play is a travel sketchbook of sharp
and entertaining caricatures; the title is a metaphor for the characters
who appear from nowhere, coalesce, form themselves into weird and
extravagant shapes, drift and disappear. Comedy Benn W Levy. 4 men, 3 women. 2 Simple Sets. Two couples' domestic complications are thrashed out and. acted out mostly on shipboard. "The two wives," in the words of Atkinson in the Tunes, "adore each other until they discover that they both had had the same lover before they were married ... Mr. Levy then introduces the lover and the mistress, turns everything upside down once or twice, and concludes by making the wives friends again and the husbands enemies. |