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The Learned LadiesMolière. Trans A.R. Waller & adapted by Chambers & Pimlott Molière's satire of intellectual snobbery focuses on the
womenfolk of Chrysale's household, who look on all but intellectual
pursuits as worthless, and spurn love in favour of learning. The
heroine, Chrysale's daughter Henriette, wants to marry Clitandre
but her mother wishes her to marry the poet Trissotin, who is worming
his way into the household in order to marry Henriette for her family's
fortune. When his avaricious plot is discovered, he is sent away
in disgrace, leaving Henriette free to marry Clitandre as she wishes.
Molière's play was written in 1682. This adaptation was first
performed by the RSC in 1997 Molière, translated into English verse by Richard Wilbur :Comedy 8M 5F Interior set Les Femmes Savantes, Molière's witty examination of intellectual pretensions and the vicissitudes of love translated by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Richard Wilbur. Clitandre seeks the hand of Henriette, a match heartily approved
of by her father, Chrysale. However, his wife, Philaminte, has other
plans for her young daughter, namely marriage to Trissotin, a foppish
wit its birthday. who panders to Philaminte's intellectual pretensions.
Further complications arise in true Moliere fashion involving various
other members of the family as well as a jealous scholar, Vadius.
Needless to say, the course of true love does not run smooth as the
pseudo-intellectual posturings of Philaminte and her coterie clash
with the struggle between Chrysale and Philaminte over who shall
ordain the disposition of their daughter's hand. But happily and
thanks to the manoeuvring of Chrysale's brother, Ariste, all is set
right in the end with hypocrisy exposed and true love made triumphant. Play. Julia Kearsley: M2 (22, 50) F4 (20s, 36, 49). A living-room. A touching, yet humorous play which wryly examines the effects of
loss and dependency on the family. When Dad walks out, his family
must try to come to terms with his mysterious disappearance: his
grief-stricken wife, his pregnant, widowed daughter, his slightly
eccentric son, and his career girl stepdaughter. But the arrival
of down-at-heel Malcolm brings about an amazing transformation. 'Not
least of the author's qualities is a sparky, unpredictable humour
...' New Statesman Comedy James Gow and Arnaud D'Usseau. 4 men, 3 women; 2 Interiors After a quarrel with her boyfriend, Minerva Pinney returns home to Penneyfield. There Minerva hits on a plan to turn her historic New England village into another Colonial Williamsburg and interests the Banning Foundation in funding the restoration. Sarah Pinney, Minerva's ancestor and a Revolutionary heroine who courageously defied General Howe, will be forever enshrined in American history. Then Adam Hatwick, her boyfriend, shows up. Minerva is happy to see him until he denigrates the restoration project. Minerva orders him out, but he remains, making himself agreeable to Minerva's mother, who thinks the restoration is rubbish. To annoy Adam, Minerva becomes engaged to Edgar Cameron, who shares her enthusiasm and thinks he could make a profit off of the project. Then her mother produces Sarah's diary, which reveals that she was not the saint history has made of her; but that she seduced General Howe to keep him from pursuing the Revolutionary Army. Adam applauds her action, but Minerva is shocked and decides the restoration must be stopped. Edgar and Landis, the foundation representative, however, want to continue. Determined, Minerva pretends to use Sarah's trick, blackmailing Landis into pulling out of the restoration. When Adam finds out, he is enraged. But the audience knows she is only teasing him, letting him think she did what he honored Sarah for doing! Minerva realizes she is still in love with Adam, and pulls him into her arms. Play D.B. Gilles. 4 men. Interior The setting is the basement recreation room where "The Stardust
Boys," a local Ohio polka band, meet to rehearse. Urged on by their
leader, Stosh, they are getting ready to make a demo record which,
Stosh hopes, will lead on to the fame and fortune which have eluded
them thus far. The other players, who hold full time jobs and have
been content to settle for the extra income their weekend bookings
has provided, humour Stosh - but the mood darkens when Nick, the
accordion player and star composer for the group, announces his decision
to marry and leave the band. What is suddenly at stake is the very
existence of "The Stardust Boys" and their newly kindled hopes for
the big time - a prospect which Stosh cannot easily accept. Tension
mounts as Stosh confronts Nick with the perfidy of his decision and
the others, joining in, reveal the problems which shadow their own
lives. In the end it is dear that their music, and the escape it
provides, has been the sustaining force of their lives, and its loss,
however stoically borne, will return them to the. tedium and bleakness
which they have struggled to surmount. Play Lanford Wilson: 2 men, 3 women, 2 boys. Unit Set. At 17, Alan visits the California home of his father and his father's
former mistress turned wife. His father's life now centers around
his two young sons, a tiresome job at an aircraft plant, and two
teenage girls who are boarded with the family by the State. Alan
has come expecting to go to school full-time and work part-time at
the plant, having accepted his father's encouragement to do so. But
the older man is incapable of honesty, least of all emotional honesty,
and his lies about school are worth about as much as his lies about
love. In the end, his cruelty, insecurity and lechery bring on an
inevitable collision which destroys all that the father and son had
hoped for. Alan is driven away once more, embittered by the knowledge
that he must live without the father he so desperately wants and
needs. Play. Kent Broadhurst. 8 men, 5 women. Interior. The scene is the showroom of Beuchel Goodee Motors in a mid-sized
American city, where several of the latest model Edgar and Beamus
automobiles are on gleaming display. Also on hand are the fast-talking,
commission-hungry salesmen who peddle the product; the officious,
pants-suited office manager, Desenelle Peplow, who tries to keep
them in line; and assorted customers who fall into their clutches.
But there are problems beyond selling cars: Bud Goodee, the son of
the ailing owner, is trying to fill his father's shoes while keeping
a jealous eye on his sexy wife; his best friend, Wade Grady, is both
the star salesman and the one Bud's wife is determined to seduce;
while Berl Fancher, another salesman, is a recovered alcoholic with
an outrageously obvious toupee who frequently wishes he was back
on the booze. And as the action of the play races ahead hilariously
we can see his point - although, happily enough, things do work out,
with those involved remaining as breezily brash, greedy and tacky
at the end of the play as they were at the beginning. Comedy. Ken Ludwig : M4 (young, 30s, 50s) F4 (20s, 30s, 50s). An hotel suite. A concert in Ohio in 1934 is jeopardised when the lead Italian tenor
falls into a drunken stupor. So the impresario's diminutive assistant
blacks up and goes on as Othello. The tenor awakens, dons his costume,
and thence follows an hilarious comedy involving two Othellos, a
volatile Italian wife, an outrageous bellhop and a cynical impresario.
'A furiously paced comedy with more than a touch of the Marx brothers
... wonderful farcical moments and funny lines ...' Time Out Play. Michael Wilcox : M2 F2, 1 boy. Various simple interior and exterior settings. Orphan Paul Blake's prep school is also his home. So, when the other boys leave for the 1956 Easter vacation, Paul is thrown upon the company of the despised headmaster and his wife and his somewhat eccentric grandmother, Mrs Blake. He is befriended by fellow sufferer Matey, the elderly Latin master also condemned to spend his vacation at the school, who provides an avuncular companionship for the boy on the painful, yet exciting, verge of adolescence. Play. Mike Stott, loosely based on the story by George Buchner Jacob Lenz, gifted, highly intelligent but seriously unbalanced, is invited to stay at the house of Oberlin, a philanthropic parson. The play examines the effects on the household of Lenz's erratic, sometimes dangerous, behaviour, which gradually makes him the centre of all attention and activity, and ultimately, madness is powerfully depicted as the height of selfishness. Oberlin's compassionate, Christian attempt to give Lenz love and shelter fails, and he is returned to Strasbourg. Period 1778 Play. Jean Anouilh, translated by Timberlake Wertenbaker This is a new translation, broadcast on BBC Radio, of the Anouilh play which first appeared in 1939. Léocadia was an opera singer who died after three blissful days of love with Prince Albert who has mourned her ever since. His aunt, the Duchess, does everything she can to help him and finds Amanda, who bears a striking resemblance to Léocadia, and encourages her to lay Léocadia's ghost which she does with honesty and gentle perseverance. Lessons and Lovers: D. H. Lawrence in New Mexico Play. Olwen Wymark : M4 F5. Various interior and exterior settings. This beautifully written play is set chiefly on Lawrence's New Mexico
ranch between the years 192245, and also in the present. It centres
on the extraordinary personality of Lawrence who inspires fierce
loyalty in the women around him and the love between Freida and Lawrence
which survives the conflict of their two strong characters and the
pain of Lawrence's last years. This is observed and commented on
by a professor and his four students, involved both inside and outside
the action. Vanessa Brooks : Comedy 3M 4F 1 Interior, 1 Exterior set The Hotel Nova Paradise may have seen better days, but it's still
a home away from home for the long-stay British pensioners wintering
in Majorca. For one couple, the victims of a plundered pension fund,
Marj can't help but to nose into the private lives of her fellow "Twilight
Adventurers", while talking up her husband Bill's capabilities in
order to impress them. Alfred and Grace are trying to escape their
separate loneliness and while Alfred tries to maintain a light- hearted
exterior, Grace's constant battles with Marj thinly mask her own
efforts to keep up appearances. Even Karen, the tour rep, isn't above
a little embellishment. But when the arrival of a young couple, booked
into the pensioner's hotel by mistake, coincides with a near-riot
by the hotel's staff, the many layers of deceit peel away with increasing
speed, leaving everyone exposed to the dangers of pretence and deception. (in Scot-Free) 'The audience was absolutely riveted to the plight of a battered
wife, thrown out of the house by her husband and trying to explain
the situation to her young daughter through the letter-box' Inverness
Focus. Play. Hugh Whitemore : M3 (35, middle-age, 60s) F2 (50s, 60s). A castle library. 1963 was an amazing year and life was changing. Britain was becoming a different place and to many people, Harold Macmillan, the Prime Minister, seemed outdated and irrelevant - an Edwardian grandee lingering uncomfortably in the world of E-type Jaguars, Carnaby Street and Beatlemania. But few were aware that his life was scarred by domestic unhappiness and sexual betrayal. Hugh Whitemore explores the events that lay hidden behind the headlines and examines a complex web of personal and political morality. Comedy. Peter Shaffer : M2 (middle-age) F3 (middle-age). Extras. A grand hall, an office, a basement flat. Daughter of an actress who toured with an all-female company playing
Shakespeare's plays, Lettice has inherited both theatricality and
eccentricity. Now employed as a tourist guide in a shabby stately
home, she enlivens its dull history with her own over-imaginative
fantasies, until she is caught in the act and promptly sacked. She
is later visited by the starchy Preservation Trust official who fired
her, and an unlikely friendship develops between the two. Play. Timothy Mason. 6 men, 3 women. Exterior. The place is the front porch of a comfortable old house in suburban
Minneapolis; the time a summer night in the late 1970s. Arriving
home unexpectedly to visit his family, Joe, a would-be playwright
who earns his living working for a newspaper in New York City, finds
the house locked and apparently deserted. Then his father, a retired
minister who has been sitting in the backyard watching for shooting
stars, suddenly appears, followed in turn by other family members
and friends. Included are Joe's mother, his sister and her young
son, a favourite former teacher of his father's (who, by Joe's calculation,
should have died years before), Orville Wright (who really can't
still be alive), and Joe's male lover, Ira, a flippant young Jewish
caterer from New York who, unaccountably, seems to get along famously
with the others. As the action progresses the line between the real
and the imagined becomes progressively more blurred until, in the
play's deeply affecting final moments, Joe comes to accept both the
fact of death and the transitory nature of life, and to realise that
the two are a continuum in which our loved ones are never lost to
us as long as memory persists. |