Play: Patrick Meyers. : 2 men. Exterior set
The setting is an icy ledge high up on K2, the world's second highest
mountain. Two climbers, Taylor and Harold, are stranded at 27,000
feet, and Harold has suffered a broken leg in their precipitous descent.
They have also lost one of their ropes, and the remaining one is
neither long or strong enough to serve as a sling to lower Harold
to the next ledge. As Taylor climbs back up the mountain in an attempt
to recover the other rope the two men keep up a running conversation
which begins in a lighthearted vein but gradually shades into an
absorbing discussion of the meaning and value of life. Taylor, an
arch-conservative, womanizing assistant district attorney, sees personal
gratification as the focus of existence, while Harold, a physicist,
has found an almost mystic satisfaction in his selfless love for
his wife and young son. When Taylor's attempts to rescue the second
rope fail, and the desperation of their situation can no longer be
denied, it is, finally, the bond between the two men which is put
to the test as Harold, in a scene of shattering emotional impact,
calmly but firmly orders Taylor to save himself to salvage the one
life which can be saved, and to live on for both of then.
ISBN: 0-8222-0606-4
Comedy. Alan Bennett
M5 F1. A living-room, heaven.
It is 1919 and the tubercular Kafka adjures Max to burn his writings
after his death. Max doesn't and goes on to publish all Kafka's work.
Moving to the 1980s, in an English suburban living room sit Sydney,
a Kafka-besotted insurance agent, his frustrated wife and his elderly
father. Into their midst descends the dead but lively Max, closely
followed by a cadaverous Kafka and Kafka's larger-than-life father.
It seems everyone wants to get in on the act ... This text is the
revised 1992 edition.
ISBN 0 573 01663 1
Play. William Nicholson
M7 (50s-60s) F4 (18, 20s, 40s). Extras. Various simple settings.
Opening on the wedding night of Henry VIII and his fourth wife,
Anne of Cleves, and closing with the execution of his fifth wife,
Katherine Howard, found guilty of adultery, Nicholson's play takes
a slice of Tudor history and turns it into pure theatrical magic.
A touching May-to-September romance; political intrigue, plots and
betrayals; a pointed and sometimes comic portrayal of women's lives
in Tudor times: all these, and more, are elements of this entertaining,
thoughtful, intelligent play from the author of Shadowlands. Period
1540-1542
ISBN 0 573 01811 1
Farce. Georges Feydeau.
Translated and adapted by Robert Cogo-Fawcett and Braham Murray
M 13 F5. Extras. A salon, the Town Hall, two bedrooms.
Feydeau's hilarious farce Occupe-toi d'Amélie is here
translated in a lively new version - seen at the Royal Exchange,
Manchester, under the title She's in Your Hands! Marcel will
inherit one million francs - on his wedding day. Unwilling to relinquish
his bachelorhood, but in dire need of cash, he persuades Amélie,
a coquette, to act as his fiancée for benefit of his godfather.
But events don't go according to plan!
ISBN 0 573 01813 8
Drama. Barbara Lebow. 1 man, 2 women. Unit Set
It is 1854. On a remote stretch of Maine coast live Captain Nathaniel
Brockett and his wife, Octavia, lighthouse keepers who have had to
move into the tower itself after a terrible winter storm wrecks their
cottage. With them is Angeline, the young black woman raised as their
daughter. Claiming that she received a head injury during the storm,
Octavia begins to have attacks of delirium. Past and present merge
for her as she fantasizes about the captains lustful nature and instigates
bizarre arguments with Angeline, mistaking her for a woman who died
long ago. The captain tries to divert his wife with romantic tales
of his adventures at sea, but her brain fever, it seems, may have
other, more sinister roots. As she tries to draw the others into
her suddenly realized memories, we discover how Octavia's fears have
brought about her own repression as well as her apparent domination
over Angeline and Nathaniel. While the captain cannot face the reality
of his wife's continuing decline, Angeline can no longer suppress
questions about her real mother or her heritage. Racially isolated
and kept under Octaviâs thumb, Angeline struggles to break
free of her stifling environment. She grows stronger as Octavia weakens,
but it is only upon Octavia's death that the truths she's been seeking
will out, whatever the consequences.
ISBN: 0-8222-1459-8
Keeping Down With the Joneses.
Comedy. John Chapman and
Jeremy Lloyd
M5 (1 Asian-Indian) F4. An underground atomic shelter.
Convinced the Russians are about to launch a nuclear strike, Geoffrey
Jones builds a shelter in his garden which the family decide to try
out. Inadvertently they are trapped inside with the telephone engineer
and their Indian milkman. Trying to make the best of the situation
they are surprised by the arrival, through the side hatch, of their
next door neighbours. Ever striving to keep up with the Joneses they
are now keeping down with them by building their own shelter
...!
ISBN 0 573 61115 7
Lucy Gannon : Drama 3M 2F Flexible staging
Tom is approaching his twenty fifth birthday. He is severely handicapped
and in spite of growing intervention from the social services he
has lived in the care of his parents Doug and Winnie and sister Charlie,
who have devoted their lives to him. Tom's family has coped with
the unrelenting strain of maintaining social appearances while caring
for his every need but with the arrival of Stephen, a new case worker
with a particular insight into Tom's circumstances, the family is
pushed to the breaking point in this rich and compelling examination
of a family disintegrating under the pressures of an increasingly
complex world. Winner of the 1990 John Whiting Award, the Susan Smith
Blackburn Prize and the Richard Burton Drama Award.
ISBN: 0 85676 146 X
Play. Robert Patrick
M2 (young) F3 (young). Extra 1 M. A bar.
'The theme of the play is the death of the ideas of heroes as guides
for our lives. I think the sad thing about Kennedy's children is
that they have so very much to offer one another and are held away
from one another by fear and despair ... the play stands as my tribute
to their valour and suffering.' Robert Patrick.
ISBN 0 573 61126 2
Comedy. Kevin Wade. 2 men, 1 woman. Unit Set
The scene is a bicycle path in Central Park, where three young cyclists
come together each weekend. Philip, an aspiring novelist, is having
an affair with Lisa, a photographer, while Michael, a Madison Avenue
copywriter, is newly married to the girl with whom he has been living
(and who has just run off for a fling with her music teacher). Their
meetings are pleasantly casual and filled with crisp, funny lines,
but sobering reality pops up when Lisa suggests to Philip that they
make their relationship more permanent by exchanging apartment keys
- a possibility which disconcerts the freedom-loving Philip, who
prefers sex without "commitment." As Lisa presses her case Philip
evades, but then, as Lisa stuns him by electing to turn elsewhere,
Philip reverses his field and tries to win her back - but the opportunity
has slipped by. Meanwhile Michael's wife calls to tell him she is
coming home - a prospect which, despite the fact that they had decided
to make their own liaison a lasting one, he can only regard with
mixed feelings and even a touch of regret.
ISBN: 0-8222-0609-9
Comedy. John Chapman and Dave Freeman
M3 (30-50) F4 (30-middle-age). Composite setting.
In this wickedly amusing play Harriet solves her financial problems
by entertaining two married gentlemen on different days of the week.
The scheme faces collapse when her friend, Anne, arrives, hotly pursued
by her husband; one of Harriet's lovers is confined to bed with a
sprained ankle and the second lover turns up unexpectedly, closely
followed by two irate wives in search of their itinerant husbands!
The long-running London production starred Moira Lister, Patrick
Cargill, Barbara Murray and Glyn Houston.
ISBN 0 573 11258 4
Play. Stewart Burke
M4 (young, 305) F3 (27, 30, middle-age). Composite setting: a sitting-room
and bedroom.
A TV production is in preparation to feature the well-known star
Maggy Fairchild. At a gathering in her flat of leading personalities
in the project, hidden tensions are apparent under the smoothly sophisticated
surface. A spare key to the flat disappears, and late that night
an intruder, disguised in a Ku Klux Klan outfit, tries to strangle
Maggy. The final surprising revelation unveils an unusual and potentially
tragic tangle of personal relationships.
ISBN 0 573 11215 0
Play Thomas Babe. 7 men, 4 women. Unit Set
Charismatic, dazzling, and attractive to both sexes, Kid Champion
has achieved the pinnacle of success as a rock star. He is surrounded
by an entourage of groupies, press agents, would-be biographers and
adoring fans - all of whom seek to share in the glittering excitement
of his almost frightening notoriety. But even as the play captures
the aura of this high-powered world, it also exposes the emotional
and intellectual complexities of its title character, and the uncertainties,
faced by a gifted, attractive kid from Kansas who is skyrocketed
to sudden wealth and fame, and eroded by the drink, drugs, and messianic
power which are so much a part of the rock scene. Inevitably, as
pressures mount, there is tragedy and sudden decline, and the sense
that all the beauty and ugliness of the 60s have been compressed
into one brief, but remarkable, lifetime.
ISBN: 0-8222-0610-2
Comedy. Donald Wollner. 3 men, 3 women, several roles are doubled. Unit set
Benjamin Schwartz was born with "a slight pigmentation abnormality" -
i.e. he is purple from the neck up. This naturally leads to problems
with the other kids, who call him a "retarded grape," after which
fights ensue - invariably won by Ben. In fact he becomes so good
at using his fists that his mother's dream of his becoming a lawyer
is soon side-tracked by a career in the ring, and an eventual shot
at the title. But the progression of his pugilistic successes is
also an opportunity for the author to poke hilarious good fun at
some abiding cliches of our times, as Kid Purple becomes the great "off-white" hope.
His mother may have died of a broken heart when she heard of his
first fight, but his sister (now the lawyer in the family) steps
in to learn how to smoke cigars and manage his career, and a resourceful
black trainer, Willie Hogan, teaches him all the dirty tricks he
needs to know to make it to the top. Which he does, culminating in
a hard-won victory over Sweet Eddie Kareem, the reigning champ, and
some valuable lessons in life for a basically sweet-natured kid from
Great Neck who, in the final essence, is only searching for acceptance
and happiness in a non-purple world.
ISBN: 0-8222-0611-0
Play. Tudor Gates
M3 (20s, middle-age, 50s) F2 (late teens, 30s). Composite setting:
an office and a street area.
Paul Kendon is a highly successful international businessman whose
world is turned upside down when a man claims to have kidnapped his
daughter. Although Kendon is prepared to quietly pay the ransom,
his security officer calls in the police in the form of the cool,
intelligent Inspector Joy Hart. Kendon must take a back seat as Hart
engages the kidnapper in a battle of wits, leading to the exciting
climax with unexpected twists.
ISBN 0 573 11217 7