Composers and their stage works 



 

Don Juan.

Play. Bertolt Brecht, adapted from Molière. Translated by Ralph Manheim
M 15 F6.

In this adaptation Don Juan, the legendary lover, is regarded as a means to ridicule the hypocrisy and pretentiousness of the world as he pursues his amorous ways, dodges and outwits his enemies until, in the form of the Statue of the Commander, he meets his inevitable nemesis and is cast into hell tire. This is one of Brecht's less radical adaptations and one of those with which he apparently had least to do.

Don Juan

Molière. Trans K. McLeish
10m 4f. Classic comedy/drama. Multipurpose set.

Set in Sicily, Molière's version retells the famous myth of Don Juan (or Don Giovanni), the womaniser with no morals and a scorn for religion. It charts his relationship with his servant, Sganarelle, his romantic philandering, his false conversion and his ultimate punishment. Original first performed in 1665.
ISBN 1854593560

Don Juan in Chicago

Comedy. David Ives. 5 men, 3 women. Interior.

Don Juan is a handsome, rich, sexually naive nobleman in Sixteenth Century Spain. His servant, Leporello, urges him to find a girlfriend and lead a normal life, but the Don is more interested in finding the meaning of life through books and alchemy. Afraid he won't have time to find it, Don Juan calls up the Devil and cuts a deal that grants him (and Leporello) immortality - as long as Don Juan seduces a different woman every day. Unfortunately, the first woman he seduces is Dona Elvira, his true love. Infuriated by the Don's abandonment, Elvira cuts her own deal with the Devil: she won't die until she sleeps with Don Juan a second time. Four hundred years later, exhausted by endless sex and still pursued by Elvira, Don Juan and Leporello grapple with the sexual mores of late twentieth-century urban America as embodied by Sandy, a woman of wide and wild sexual experience. Don also meets the young and innocent Zoey - who happens to be his daughter by Sandy. With never any time to pursue the meaning of life, Don Juan swears off sex after promising Elvira one last evening with her. Hearing this, the Devil calls in his debt. Don Juan, Leporello and Elvira face damnation, only to be redeemed by the Devil, who, moved by Don Juan's "unfailing niceness," sends them all on to eternal bliss.
ISBN. 0-8222-1479-2

Doña Rosita the Spinster, or the Language of Flowers.

Play. Federico Garcia Lorca. Translated by Gwynne Edwards
M7 F12, a voice. Two rooms.

A realistic social drama set in Granada between 1855 and 1911. The central character, Rosita, is an attractive and hopeful 20-year-old, in love with her cousin. Act II is set in 1900 and portrays the movement of Progress beyond Rosita's home whilst she waits for her cousin. The plays ends dramatically with an anguished portrayal of Rosita as an ageing spinster. Lorca's treatment of Rosita is one of sympathy and understanding as he records her bitter humiliation.

Donkey's Years.

Play. Michael Frayn
M8 F1. A college courtyard. Two studies.

The occasion is a reunion dinner at a lesser college of an older university. Gathered together are a number of graduates now in their early forties and mostly in responsible, influential positions. All starts smoothly, with the usual conventional greetings, but as the night goes on the college port causes behaviour surprising in those positions of political, academic or spiritual authority. The play was seen at the Globe Theatre, London, with Peter Barkworth, Jeffrey Wickham and Penelope Keith.
ISBN 0 573 11097 2

Donny Boy

Robin Glendinning : Drama 2M IF Interior set

Amid the troubles of life in present day Ulster, Ma is coping with raising her mentally handicapped son Doom. Donny has witnessed an IRA murder of a British policeman, and been given the murder weapon to throw into the river, but instead returns home with the gun. Cahill, who is also known as the Quartermaster, has apparently committed the murder and comes to the house to make sure the job has been completed. The almost farcical nature of the celebration which ensues turns to horror with the arrival of the British Army in the neighbourhood searching for a suspect. Cahill vanishes, leaving Ma and Donny to hide the weapon during the search which decimates their house, but the weapon remains cleverly hidden. When Cahill returns after the soldiers leave, the layers of truths and half-truths surrounding what really occurred are peeled off revealing a much different series of events than at first appeared.
ISBN: 0 85676 150 8

Don't Dress for Dinner.

Farce. Marc Camoletti, adapted by Robin Hawdon
M3 (35, any age) F3 (30s). A living-room.

Bernard is hoping to weekend in the country with his chic Parisian mistress Suzy. He has arranged for a cordon bleu cook, is in the process of packing his wife Jacqueline off to her mother, and has invited along his best friend Robert as a suitable alibi. It's foolproof. What could possibly go wrong? Well ... Hilarious confusion piles upon hilarious confusion as Bernard and Robert improvise at breakneck speed!
ISBN 0 573 01748 4

Don't Drink the Water.

Comedy. Woody Allen
M 12 F4. An embassy.

This hilarious affair takes place in an American Embassy behind the Iron Curtain. An American tourist, caterer by trade, and his family, rush into the embassy two steps ahead of the police who suspect them of spying and picture-taking. But it is not much of a refuge as the ambassador is absent and his son, now in charge, has been expelled from a dozen different countries. Nevertheless they carefully and frantically plot their escape and the ambassador's son and the caterer's daughter even have time to fall in love.
ISBN 0 573 60817 2

Don't Just Lie There, Say Something.

Farce. Michael Pertwee
M5 (30-old) F4 (20s). A town hall stage, a London flat.

Sir William is leading a campaign against permissiveness. In order to counter this a group of hippies abduct Barry Ovis, a young Parliamentarian and take him, drugged, to a wild party. He escapes and takes refuge in Sir William's flat. He finds the great man is far from unpermissive himself. The pleasant evening of dalliance Sir William has arranged is upset by a series of complications. The mounting frenzy culminates in a whirlwind of frenetic, panic-stricken plans and counter-plans.
ISBN 0 573 01040 4

Don't Lose the Place!

Comedy. Derek Benfield
M3 (young, late 30s, early 50s) F2 (young, 35). Composite setting: a sitting-room, patio and part of a kitchen.

When Sylvia's boyfriend Robin walks out on her she decides on a rather unconventional method of finding a replacement. Determined not to be let down a second time, she has carefully arranged a timetable in order to 'try out' various assorted lovers and assess their suitability before making her final choice of a potential husband. But timetables have a way of going wrong... A torrent of confusions and mistaken identities inevitably arise as Sylvia and her friend Jemma try, with unexpected and hilarious results, to prevent the final confrontation of the three trial husbands. A delightfully comic climax ensues.
ISBN 0 573 01749 2

Don't Misunderstand Me.

Comedy. Patrick Cargill
M2 (40s) F3 (20, 40). A living-room.

A light and frothy comedy relating the complications and misunderstandings that arise when Charles and Margery prepare to entertain Charles's brother Robert and his new wife, Jane, whom they have never met. Robert arrives, without Jane, and reveals that he had a brief affaire in America with Jaynie, but has covered his tracks by not giving her his English address. Minutes later Jaynie arrives! Confusions arise from wild deceptions as Charles and Robert struggle to keep Margery Jaynie and a further young lady from revealing their true identities ...
ISBN 0 573 11150 2

Don't Rock the Boat

Robin Hawdon : Comedy 2M 4F Interior set

The peaceful waters of the Thames get decidedly choppy iwhen brash self- made property developer Arthur Bullhead decides to cement the deal of a lifetime. He invites the local planning committee chairman and his family to spend what appears to be an idyllic weekend on board the Bunty, Bullhead's converted riverside barge. Bullhead has ulterior motives however, and the arrival of John Coombes with his wife Carol and their daughter leads to chaos for everyone, as personalities and lifestyles clash at every turn. Over the course of the weekend, Bullhead's unscrupulous approach to doing business proves overpowering to the straight-laced Coombes, whose indignation knows no bounds - until Bullhead makes an offer he can't possibly refuse. Or can he? Together with his skittish wife Mary and rebellious daughter Shirley, Bullhead gives the Coombes and their own unassuming daughter Wendy a weekend they'll never forget, which culminates in mutiny ... on the Bunty!
ISBN: 0 85676 158

Dora: A Case Of Hysteria :

Kim Morrissey.
2m, 1f. Comedy/drama. Simple set.

A satirical feminist play debunking the theories of Sigmund Freud. In the famous case, Dora is sent to Dr Freud by her father, who feels she is suffering from neurosis. Despite her claims that her father's friend has been sexually harassing her, Freud believed her to be exhibiting symptoms of hysteria caused by repressed sexual desire rather than by any abuse.
ISBN 1854592955

Double Cut

Alfred Shaughnessy, adapted from the film Chase a Crooked Shadow
Thriller 4M 3F Interior set

An ingenious new thriller set in a luxury villa on the Costa del Sol. The plot revolves around diamond heiress Olivia Prescott whose villa is disturbed by an enigmatic stranger claiming to be her supposedly dead brother. He seems to know even every trivial detail of their past family life, his papers verify his identity, but Olivia insists with mounting hysteria that he is an imposter. He manages to convince all around him with the exception of Olivia and we begin to question whether Olivia herself is concealing something. The plot thickens when we learn that £10 million worth of diamonds arc missing. Is this what the stranger is after? The complications are finally unravelled in a revealing denouement to this taut and well-written thriller.
ISBN: 0 85676 021 8

Double Double.

Play. Eric Elice and Roger Rees
M 1 (40) F1 (30).

A London apartment. Phillipa has picked up down-and-out Duncan. It is, she explains, purely a business arrangement based on Duncan's uncanny resemblance to her recently deceased husband, Richard, who stood to inherit a million-pound trust fund in a few weeks. All Duncan has to do for a half-share in the fund is impersonate Richard at a party. This clever thriller twists and turns until the stunning climax that leaves the audience gasping. 'A glossy romantic thriller - it should be seen to be believed.' Sunday Times
ISBN 0 573 01646 1

Double Edge

Play: Leslie Darbon and Peter Whelen
M2. F1. A Study.

Helen Galt, handsome and intelligent holder of the History Chair at an Oxford College, has been commissioned to write a 'clear, concise, objective' book on a recent assassination attempt on the Prime MInister, in the course of which the Home Secretary's wife was shot dead. To aid her research she has acquired a set of slides and a tape recording of the event. From these it appears that things might not be simply explained as a straightforward political assassination attempt. Two visitors call on her - a revolutionary agitator who is 'wanted' as a suspect for the crime, and, in sharp contrast, the Home Secretary himself. It soon transpires that there were indeed other, more personal motives behind the killing. During the evening the ball of suspicion and accusation is tossed - not among two, but among all three persons present, until a final surprised revelation is followed by yet one further twist of the plot as the final curtain is about to descend.

Down the Road

Drama. Lee Blessing. 2 men, 1 woman. Unit Set

Down the Road centers on a convicted serial killer, and the husband and wife writing team hired to help him write an account of his crimes. The killer, Bill Reach, has admitted to the murders of nineteen women, but there may have been more. Over many weeks of interviews, the couple - Dan and Iris Henniman - grow more and more uncertain of the ethics of what they are doing. Are they simply relating terrifying events, or are they helping readers consume rape, murder and mutilation as if they are consuming any other product of our society? Are they, in fact, helping to turn Bill Reach into a celebrity?
ISBN: 0-8222-0324-3

The Dozens

Comedy. Laird Koenig. 2 men, 1 woman. Interior

The scene is one of the new African nations which is in the revolutionary process of overthrowing its once revered dictator. And there in the middle of the tumult are a black girl singer from America and her manager and more or less husband, who fancies himself as a stand-up comic. The girl has just made a big hit singing 'Love for Sale' to the pygmies; and she is much desired by the fleeing dictator, who watched her with admiration when he saw her in a New York club. The fugitive tyrant, whose name, by the way, is Kgaravu, hasn't given up hope of being restored to power and, since he is a virile and handsome young fellow, he sees no reason why he cannot keep the beautiful girl with him. He feels he baser much of a rival in the manager, who keeps fighting with his singer and certainly isn't exactly of heroic stature. But he reckons without the guile and resodrcefidness of a New York stand-up comic. The republic in which this triangular love story takes place is called Chaka, and it is, of course; imaginary ...But the author has told his slender love story with humor and charm, and there is something dramatically striking in the basic situation of two black Americans set down in the land from where their ancestors came and finding it bringing out their native American feelings.
ISBN: 0-8222-0325-1