Composers and their stage works 



 

The Knack

Comedy. Ann Jellicoe
M3 (young) F 1 (17). A room.

Jellicoe's best play, written in 1961 and later filmed with Rita Tushingham, is an exuberant, liberating youthful comedy. Three young men share a flat. Into their midst wanders Nancy, a gawky seventeen year-old Northerner looking for the YWCA, who will give the tough Tolen a chance to demonstrate his knack with women. The staccato dialogue skims along in this study of the shifting relationships and power balances among the four young people. An undercurrent is Tolen's Nazi characteristics and whether negotiation is possible with such people.

Knuckle

Play. David Hare M4, including doubling, F2. Simple settings.

Curly, a young arms merchant, determines to discover the secret behind the disappearance of his sister, Sarah, from the deserted stretch of beach between Pevensey and Eastbourne. Also involved is the Shadow of the Moon Club in Guildford. Curly's investigations lead him to uncover corruption and rottenness under the placid surface of Guildford, where his father, a City man, lives in circumstances of some intimacy with his housekeeper.
ISBN 0 573 01570 8

The Kramer

Play. Mark Medoff.
4 men, 3 women. Unit Set

Self-assured and unyielding, Bart Kramer after accepting an important business position inexorably intrudes himself into the lives of his associates. Coldly and dispassionately he sets out to "save" it, particularly the young man who has been named as his assistant, and the awesome power of his driving ego is so great that resistance to his will is futile. A potent, baleful force wreaking havoc not only on the younger man but on all who come in contact with it, "The Kramer" becomes almost Christ-like in his power, yet Satan-like in the terrible toll his actions take. And the otherworldly quality of the man, and the play, is emphasised by the fluidity and fragmentation of the staging - as though the action were occurring in a strange, sometimes ethereal dream, grounded in reality but filled with disturbing overtones of dark and scarcely understood forces. In the end Kramer is as inscrutable and elusive as ever, but the cruel reality of the damage he has done to others remains to be pondered - as does the haunting, provocative question of "why?"
ISBN: 0-8222-0620-X

Kringle's Window

Children's Play. Mark Medoff,
3 boys, 4 girls (flexible casting); unit set.

Becka, age 12, and Boomer, age 8, are sisters whose parents are in the middle of a trial separation at Christmas time. Becka, a precocious computer hacker, has become cynical and withdrawn. Boomer tries to be the peacemaker, eternally positive and anxious for all around her to be happy. Their parents, Dean and Irene, both child therapists, disagree on how to deal with the problems of their own children. While taking her sister to the mall to see Santa, Becka is goaded by her hacker friends into telling Boomer that there is no Santa, and when she does, this threatens to ruin Christmas for the family. While Dean and Irene try to deal with the fallout, the magical and mysterious Mrs. Rosen, comes into everyone's lives and begins to change the equation. She challenges Becka to prove there is no Santa by using her computer to see if she can't find him hooked up to a network somewhere. Becka, feeling more and more remorseful over what she has done to her sister, is intrigued by Mrs. Rosen's challenge and by the end Dean and Irene have reconciled, Becks has a brighter outlook on life, Boomer gets her Christmas wish and Santa .... well, of course, he's real.
ISBN: 0-8222-1356-7