Composers and their stage works 



 

The Good and Faithful Servant

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.

Good As New

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.
ISBN: 0-8222-1638-8

The Good Doctor

Comedy. Neil Simon. Music by Peter Link
M2 F3, much doubling and trebling. Various interior and exterior settings. Music available on application to Samuel French Ltd

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
ISBN 0 573 60971 3

Good Grief

Play. Keith Waterhouse
M2 (35, 50s) F2 (32, middle-age). A living-room, hall and landing, a pub

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.
ISBN 0 573 01777 8

Good Old Summertime

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.

The Good Parts

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.
ISBN: 0-8222-0464-9

The Good Person of Sichuan

Play. Bertolt Brecht, translated by Michael Hofmann
M 14 F8. 1 child. Extras. Various interior and exterior settings.

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 Person of Szechwan

(The Good Woman of Setzuan). Parable play. Bertolt Brecht
Translations: John Willett, music by Freda Dowie and Stephen Oliver
Eric Bentley, music by Dessau
M 17 F9. Interior and exterior settings.

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.

The Good Thief

(in The Lime Tree Bower) : Conor McPherson
1m. Short monologue. Minimal set.

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.
ISBN 1854582998

Goodbye Freddy

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.
ISBN. 0-8222-0460-6

Goodly Creatures

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.
ISBN: 0-8222-0462-2

Goodnight Mrs Puffin

Play. Arthur Lovegrove
M5 (19, 20s, 50) F5 (20s, 45, 50). A drawing-room.

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.
ISBN 0 573 01163 X

Goose-Pimples

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.
ISBN 0 573 11160 X

The Government Inspector

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.
ISBN 1 85459 174 6