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Play. Hugh Leonard Fran returns home to Ireland for her brother's ordination and is
confronted by her mother and sister, who are concerned with the neighbours'
reactions to Fran's bleached hair and low-cut dress. Fran finds a
soul-mate in her brother-in-law who is trapped in a web of stifling
domesticity and meets up again with the fiancé who jilted
her eight years previously. But a cruel misunderstanding forces her
to leave home once more. Comedy/Fantasy. Mary Chase. Created especially for and about children: At five, Mickey, a vain and homely girlchild, being taken to visit
a farm couple, Mr. and Mrs. Potts, had refused to return to her mother's
house and had been left to continue her life with the Potts. The
real reason for wanting to stay had been her stumbling on a fairy
castle embedded in the hill behind the farm. It is occupied by a
Duchess, a General, and an English nobleman, all with beautiful manners.
These little folk are puppets; they seem true fairies in their elaborate
castle. Mickey has become their pet; they have tremendous love for
children - more possessive than parents' love, actually, and they
are stricken when, at twelve years of age, Mickey is to be taken
away by her mother, her younger brother Colin and sister Nancy. The
Potts have sold the farm; Mickey must go home ...The Duchess, the
General and Sir Edward, however, plan to retrieve Mickey. They dig
a tunnel all the way into Mickey's closet in town and lure her, her
brother and sister back to them. But now in the tunnel, the children
are transformed into Little People too. They become puppets, carved
and dressed to resemble the actors who play Mickey, Colin and Nancy.
Reality does as it should in a fairy tale - it goes away." And fantasy
reigns, until Mickey and her family come to terms, and live happily
ever after. Play. Roger Hall Colin and Elizabeth are giving a dinner party for two other couples.
As the outwardly smooth, conventional dinner proceeds a series of
flashbacks to the preceding weeks shows hidden links and stresses
among all three couples. Among other things, it is revealed that
Colin has been having an affair with one of the other wives; however,
it seems possible that between Colin and Elizabeth there may be a
chance of a deeper understanding. Comedy A.R. Gurney. 2 men, 2 women. Interior The action takes place in the trophy room of a rather stuffy men's
dub in a midwestern city. As the play begins we meet Barney, the
son of the dub president, as a teenager - and already a rebel against
the WASP-ish virtues so dear to his family. He is infatuated with
Eleanor, a local girl of good background, but she is wary of his
wildness, and opts to date, and then marry, his stolid brother, Billy.
In a series of flashbacks we encounter Barney at various stages of
his life: as he runs away to join the Navy during the Korean war;
as a campus activist in California; as a graduate student; and ultimately,
as a successful producer of porno films. The flashbacks take Barney
and Eleanor from youth to middle age - and throughout Barney, to
his father's growing distress, continues to profess his love for
Eleanor and to challenge the validity of the life-style she has chosen.
He remains the zany, charming, unpredictable rebel, shocking family
and friends alike with his outrageous behavior until, at his father's
death, a kind of reconciliation is reached - as changing times and
fading youth soften Barney's belligerency and offer the promise of
quieter, but happier, years to come. Comedy. Mary Chase. 5 men, 6 women, 3 boys, 2 girls. Interior Mrs. Edwin Gilroy (Midgie) Purvis is a rich, fashionable and middle-aged
member of Society. She is also given to cutting unexpected, and sometimes
eyebrow-raising capers. Her rather stuffy son, Canfield (who is about
to be married), has tried to reason with her but the thing that really
makes Midgie sit up is overhearing Canfield's future mother-in-law
drop a hint of what people really think of her. Midgie is distressed
but, more importantly, she is struck by the realisation that she
has become something of a "character" - whom no one, not even her
son, needs any more. But it also happens that when Midgie receives
this revelation she is dressed in her cleaning woman's shabby clothes.
To avoid embarrassment of exposure, she is obliged to scurry out
of the house - and into her wildest escapades yet. For having usurped
her cleaning woman's clothing, she now assumes her identity as well
and, with wig and false wrinkles, becomes the aged sitter for three
bright but bumptious young children. At first it is only a temporary
ruse but as Midgie begins to feel appreciated - and alive - her deception
takes on more meaning than her real life. The result is an hilarious
mix-up that can only be set straight by Midgie giving up her double
identity and telling the truth. This she does with quiet resignation
- but the outcome is not a loss but a gain. Midgie goes back to being
herself, but this time it is the world which seems to have changed
a little, thanks to her being in it. Comedy. Peter Coke The amiable aristocratic crooks of Breath of Spring are at
it again. Brigadier Rayne deploys his charity campaigns with little
monetary success until Nan is passed a mink coat by a crook on the
run, and soon they are running a meticulously organised receiving
system for stolen furs, giving all their profits to charity. Finally,
with the house full of furs and a police inspector making inquiries,
they decide to retire - temporarily. Play. Richard Wesley. 7 men, 1 woman. Unit Set. Ten years before the time of the play The Mighty Gents had been
a power in the streets of the Newark black ghetto - proud, feared
and sure of the promise of the future. But now, at 30, the glory
years are gone, and the few Gents who still acknowledge their leader,
Frankie, are mired in slum defeatism and a sense of nowhere to go.
Unemployed and bitter, they hang around street corners guzzling wine
and cracking jokes and deriding the two characters who symbolise
what are, in truth, the only alternatives really left to them: the
drunken derelict, Zeke, and the flashy small-time racketeer, Braxton.
In a desperate attempt to resurrect The Mighty Gents, Frankie takes
his men on one final raid - the robbery (and accidental murder) of
Braxton. But, in the electrifying conclusion of the play, their brief
victory turns to ashes and brings about the destruction of Frankie,
brought about, ironically, by the despised and rejected Zeke. Comedy. Arthur Kober and George Oppenheimer. 4 men, 5 women. Interior The theatre producer, Alexander Smith (who never appears on the
stage), has been deceiving his wife with Mrs. Clyde, a lady of advanced
views in Sands Point. Alex is serious;y injured in an automobile
accident en route to New York. At first the lady's travelling case,
found in the wrecked car, seems to be the property of Mrs. Clyde.
Mrs. Smith coyly cons her into coming to the Smith apartment. When
Mrs. Clyde arrives, they both discover that the travelling case belongs
to someone else. Mr. Smith has not only been two-timing his wife;
he also has been three-timing her. For the rest of the evening the
play shows how the wife and the No. 1 mistress combine against the
little chippy in slacks who has been replacing both of them. The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore Drama. Tennessee Williams. 5 men, 4 women. Unit Set We first encounter Mrs. Goforth in one of her three villas on the
southern coast of Italy, frantically trying to complete her memoirs
before her death. However, there is still life in the old girl as
she bullies her attractive female secretary, spits venom at a visitor
whom she dubs "the witch of Capri," makes propositions to a handsome
young itinerant poet over half her age, and dictates night and day,
either to the secretary or to any number of tape recorders scattered
about the premises, her vapid and ridiculous, memories which she
believes will form an important social commentary. To the triple
homes of Mrs. Goforth comes Chris Flanders, the young poet who, because
of his past presence in the company of so many elderly women at the
time of their deaths, has won the mocking nickname of "the angel
of death." At first we take him to be, as does Mrs. Goforth, a hustler
who is willing to sell his poems, his mobiles, or his body to susceptible
and lonely ancients. To Mrs, Goforth, who has lived a full and promiscuous
life and is in mortal fear of relinquishing it, Chris comes as an
answer to a carnal prayer, a last fling before she is forced to face
ultimate loneliness. Then she discovers that he is unwilling to give
in to her seductions at any price, that his is a spiritual nature
which seeks only to allay her fears and soothe her pain. Until almost
the very end she refuses to believe in his virtue. Her life has been
so hedged in viciousness that she cannot accept readily anything
but venality. Helen Edmundson This acclaimed adaptation of George Eliot's classic feminist novel
was conceived for Shared Experience Theatre Company and first performed
in 1994. 'More compelling and fully human than the original' The
Times. Comedy. Paula Vogel. 3 men, 2 women, 2 non-speaking roles. Unit Set. A comedy in six scenes, four dreams and seven wigs. There are two
ways to produce this play: 1) with good wigs; or 2) with bad wigs.
The second way is preferred. Myrna and Myra, almost identical twins,
battle each other through the Eisenhower, Nixon and Reagan/Bush years
over virginity, Vietnam and Family Values. Drama. Bruce Graham. 5 men, 3 women. Unit Set. Deke Winters has, returned to the small town outside of Pittsburgh
where he grew up, in an attempt to reclaim his life. For many years
he was a high-powered lawyer for the Mob in Philadelphia, where he
twisted the truth to free guilty clients, tried cases in the media,
and was often paid in cocaine. The years he spent on top have taken
a tremendous toll on him: he has lost his wife, his fortune, and
he has forgone all custody rights to his six-year-old daughter. Now,
all he wants to do is put the high profile case's behind him, live
a decent life and practice simple, boring law. But the first case
to come along is a terrible murder and sexual assault in which Deke
must defend Kenny, a fifteen-year-old boy who has admitted to killing
a thirteen-year-old girl. Deke's reticence in handling the case is
compounded by the fact that his oldest and best friend, Vince, is
now the chief of police in the town. Kenny is a particularly sick
young man, but in talking with him Deke discovers that Vince did
not read Kenny his rights until after the boy confessed to the killing.
Kenny is guilty, but Deke can get him off on a technicality. Deke
is torn between his recent vow to stay honest and follow the law
- which would free a murderer and get his best friend thrown off
of the police force, or lying - which would protect his friend and
put a dangerous man behind bars. But lying is what Deke came home
to get away from and he feels he must tell the truth even if it means
terrible consequences. In the end, Kenny does get off. Forced out
of his job, Vince also moves away and Deke is left haunted by his
choice. Mystery: Reginald Denham and Mary Orr. The scene is a remote ranch in the Australian outback where Shirley,
a widow, lives with her teenage daughter, Margaret. Shirley has become
disturbed by the intense relationship which has grown between Margaret
and her friend, Carla, the child of her late foreman who Shirley
took in after her parents' death. To eliminate Carla's influence
over Margaret, Shirley decides to send her daughter to boarding school
and Carla to live with relatives. This plan leaves the girls devastated.
Their bond is even more unhealthy than anyone suspected and to avoid
separation the girls coolly arrange to murder Shirley, charting each
step so that it will appear to be an accident. At first, it is accepted
by all, including Shirley's best friend, Patricia, and her attorney,
Claude. But then, with growing horror the two grown-ups unearth small
inconsistencies. To get at the truth, Patricia and Claude devise
a strategy as clever as the crime itself, and painstakingly stalk
their quarry, who outwits them at every turn until, in the final,
chilling moments of the play, an ironic twist of fate causes them
to become the means of their own undoing. |