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Play. Joe Orton | M3 F3. This is a savage study of the disintegration of an old man when he retires after fifty sterile years in the service of a factory. More badgered than solaced by the attentions of the personnel officer and the works club for retired employees, George Buchanan's belated search for happiness lurches breathtakingly from moments of hilarity to moments of extreme pathos. Comedy/Drama. Peter Hedges. 1 man, 2 women. Exterior/Interior. Good As New follows the disintegration of an educated, affluent
Chicago family - parents and teenage daughter - following Mom's face-lift.
Devastated by what she views as a violation of who her mother is
- an enlightened feminist - the daughter confronts Mom. Mom in turn
blurts out that she took the nip-and-tuck route because she's losing
Dad and suspects he is having an affair. Further shattered, the girl
now engages in a face-off with her father, who defends himself by
saying Mom has also
"wandered." The first act, three two-person scenes in the family
car, plants the seeds of upheaval; the second act, a single long
scene for all three in the parents' bedroom, lets it explode. Comedy. Neil Simon. Music by Peter Link This comedy, a composite of Neil Simon and Anton Chekhov, from whose
short stories Simon adapted the twelve vignettes of this collection,
was first seen at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre in New York in 1973
with Christopher Plummer playing a variety of leading roles. NB: certain
Musical Material must be used in all productions, a tape of which
is available on hire from Samuel French Ltd. 'As smoothly polished
a piece of work as we're likely to see.' New York Daily News 'A
great deal of warmth and humour-vaudevillian humour-in his retelling
of the Chekhovian tales.' Newhouse Newspapers Play. Keith Waterhouse A sensitive, wryly humorous study of a middle-aged widow who finds
the courage to break with the past. June keeps a diary in the form
of private conversations with her late husband Sam, a national newspaper
editor. Her stepdaughter, Pauline, determines to keep an eye on June.
Likewise, Eric Grant, an ex-colleague of Sam's. But June strikes
out on her own and befriends Duggie, who, like June, is lonely. June,
however, discovers that Pauline, Eric and Duggie have their own hidden
agenda. Leslie Sands : Comedy 4M 5F Interior set The final chapter of Leslie Sands' "seaside" trilogy. Five years later Mr and Mrs Pepper return to the seasìde resort for a 'second honeymoon'. Avoiding the infamous "Seavìew", they opt instead for the "Bella Vista" - only to discover the boarding house has a new owner - Mrs Austin, the "Seavìew Dragon". The arrival of Wilf and Ethel Pearson sets the stage for more hilarious happenings in this comedy of unhappy reunions from Beside The Seaside and Basinful of Briny. Comedy. Israel Horovitz. 3 men, 3 women. Unit set Brian Levine and Eugene Jacoby, two New York lawyers and lifelong
friends, are restive under the constraints of careers, family responsibilities
and approaching middle age, and decide to have a last fling by escaping
to Greece, and, hopefully, romance and adventure. Brian is also determined
to fulfil a cherished dream: when he was a young boy he was cast
as "Elektra" in a school play, but stage fright caused him to panic
and flee the theatre. Now he wants to make amends by speaking the
lines at the Acropolis in the moonlight. To do this Brian and Eugene
have to break into the grounds of the Acropolis, whereupon their
troubles mount when they fear that they may have accidentally killed
a guard, and have to go "underground" in Athens (without being able
to speak the language). Meanwhile their long-suffering wives appear
on the scene, adding to the farcical and very funny complications
which multiply delightfully until all is set right in the end. Play. Bertolt Brecht, translated
by Michael Hofmann This translation for the National Theatre production in 1989 starring Fiona Shaw, is based on Brecht's 'Santa Monica' version of the play first staged in 1943. Vibrant and hard-hitting, Brecht's famous theatrical parable begins when the gods award money to the prostitute Shen Te but greedy neighbours instantly take advantage of her good nature. 'Michael Hofmann's translation is engagingly free ...' Daily Telegraph ' ... a beautifully natural-sounding translation.' Sunday Correspondent (The Good Woman of
Setzuan). Parable play. Bertolt Brecht Three gods appear on a mission - to find one really 'good' person. A kindly prostitute, Shen Te, offers them lodging and is rewarded. To protect herself from spongers she masquerades as her male cousin, Shui Ta. Later she falls in love with an unemployed airman, finds he also is a sponger, reverts to the cousin impersonation, and is accused of murdering the missing Shen Te. The gods appear as her judges and accept her plea that everything she did was with good intentions. (in The Lime Tree Bower) : Conor McPherson A monologue by the author of The Weir following the misfortunes
of a petty criminal whose conscience beats him up when he becomes
involved in a bungled kidnap. 'The writing is terse, lucid and
admirably dispassionate' Irish Times. Comedy. Elizabeth Diggs. 3 men, 3 women. Unit set On the occasion of Freddy's funeral and, at his behest, six of his
friends gather at the home of Hank and Kate in Kansas City, where
five of them grew up. Hank and Kate were childhood sweethearts whose
apparently idyllic relationship has proceeded uninterrupted through
the years. Andy and Nessa were childhood sweethearts also, but are
now divorced and living in New York. He's a successful advertising
executive; she's the author of a best-selling roman 3 clef,based
on her friends' lives. Paul is the new Undersecretary for Eastern
Affairs in Washington, and his wife, Alice, the only one who has
not known the others since grammar school is a housewife obsessed
with the many infidelities she imagines Paul has committed. Hovering
over them all is the spirit of Freddy, the only admitted homosexual
in the group. As the liquor flows and memories (and recriminations)
become more telling, Hank, in an emotional outburst, admits that
he had been having an affair with Freddy for years prior to his death.
Kate is overwhelmed by this revelation, the friends take sides and,
as the night winds down into morning, facades are stripped away as
no-holdsbarred truth-telling replaces the party atmosphere with which
the evening began. In the end Hank and Kate agree to strive for a
more honest relationship, and the others, each in his or her own
way affected by the absent Freddy, resolve to use the legacy of directness
and honesty which he left them to set their own lives on firmer paths. Play. William Gibson. 9 men, 3 women. Open Stage. The play is set in the Massachusetts Bay Colony at that early time
when the first settlers were struggling to establish a foothold in
a new and inhospitable land. Beset by bad weather and hostile Indians,
the colonists were sustained by their Puritan faith - a faith which
has brought Anne Hutchinson and her family to the new world. Gifted
with healing powers and a knowledge of folk medicine, Anne quickly
becomes a valuable asset to the colony. But she is also a mystic
who believes that God speaks to all people with simple directness
- a concept which earns her adherents but soon brings her into conflict
with the powers that be. One by one her supporters give in to pressure
from their elected leaders and the established clergy, and before
long there are accusations of witchcraft and perversion. In the end
the good-spirited Anne is condemned to banishment and a grisly death
- the victim of those who fear what they cannot understand, and must
destroy what they cannot bring under their influence and control. Play. Arthur Lovegrove The Fordyces are preparing for the wedding of their daughter,
Jacky, to Victor, son of Stephen Parker, with whom Henry
Fordyce is planning a business merger. Then in walks Mrs Puffin from
Clapham who announces that she saw in a vision that Jacky would not
marry Victor, and that she will in fact marry the young business
associate, Roger Vincent, a friend of the Parker family. She also
announces that Victor is in love with Jacky's younger sister, Pamela.
The oracle proves accurate but no wonder as Mrs Puffin has been carefully
primed for her role as suburban seer. Devised by Mike Leigh | M3 (30, one Arabic) F2 (20s). A flat. Vernon, Irving and Frankie have gone out to dinner. Meanwhile, Jackie,
Vernon's lodger, returns to the flat with Mohammed, a non-English-speaking
Arab who thinks he has been brought to a brothel. When the others
return Mohammed assumes Vernon is the barman and produces wads of
cash. The others make Mohammed the hapless butt of their tawdry humour,
mocking, abusing and feeding him alcohol until he collapses sick,
in tears and most of all bewildered at this strange display of English
hospitality. Nikolai Gogol,. Trans S. Mulrine A small corrupt Russian town receives a letter informing them of
the imminent visit of a government inspector travelling incognito,
and a passing civil servant is mistakenly bribed and flattered accordingly.
A classic satire of bureaucracy first performed in Russia in 1876. |