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Play. Jonathan Lewis 1984. Five soldiers, among them veterans of the Falklands War and
the Hyde Park bombing, are convalescing in a military hospital, with
pornography, bragging one-upmanship and cynical humour as their only
means of mental escape. Tensions arise when an officer is billeted
with them, and a bitter, savage war of words, only just disguised
as humour, is waged against him. After an hilarious birthday patty,
the six find themselves facing charges of misconduct - and then the
fighting really starts. Play. Timberlake Wertenbaker. Based on the novel The Playmaker by
Thomas Keneally This adaptation was performed at The Royal Court Theatre in 1988 and 1989 to critical acclaim. Set in Botany Bay in 1789 it tells of the rehearsals for the first play to be performed in Australia. Surrounded by forbidding conditions Lieutenant Clark attempts, under the authority of the first Governor General, to bring culture to the penal colony through a production of Farquhar's The Recruiting Officer, with a motley bunch of villains, murderers and prostitutes. Farce. Conrad Seiler. The Lovejoys have named their sons "Jesse," "Francis," and "Vivian," because
Mildred's Aunt Jessie doesn't like boys. Aunt Jessie lives in England,
so it has been easy to deceive her. She must never know that the "girls" who
are to inherit her money are boys - very real boys. They "scrap" with
Chester Wattles, are accused by Mrs. Wattles of breaking her windows
and act as other boys do. Each will receive $5,000 on his 16th birthday
and more when he comes of age. Vivian is nearly 16, and Father plans
to borrow part of the $5,000 to expand his business. Then the blow
falls! Aunt Jessie has decided to pay a visit and bestow on her eldest "niece" in
person the $5,000. What can be done? The boys must be girls during
Aunt Jessie's visit! The boys are won over, dressed as girls and
carefully rehearsed. Aunt Jessie arrives and finds Mildred's "daughters" strange
creatures indeed. All is well, however, until Vivian decides to put
on his own clothes to see Phyllis, his girl, whom he has had to neglect.
Aunt Jessie sees him slipping out - Vivian, her niece, in shirt,
pants, and cap, and cropped hair! The truth is out and it looks as
though all is lost. But though the old lady gives the family a scare,
she relents. Drama. Sebastian Barry. From her hospital bed in 1950's Dublin, Mai O'Hara recalls her life
through morphine-induced memories and hallucinations. Dying of liver
cancer caused by alcoholism, Mai reminisces on her youthful promise
as a member of the Galway bourgeoisie; the death of one of her children;
and of the marriage fueled by liquor, bickering, and remorse, to
her husband Jack who visits her on occasions as does her daughter,
Joanie. Jack's visits to her bedside are a testament to the mutual
hatred they share and the mutual dependence they have on each other.
Through it all, Mai uses her mordant wit and vanity to pull her out
of painful realisations. Once the first woman in Sligo to wear trousers,
it emerges that Mai is not only the victim of a broken marriage,
but a victim of an Ireland in which the Catholic middle-class has
been nullified by spiritual and political isolation after the Civil
War. Comedy. Luis Santeiro. The Cruz family is volatile even in the best of times: On this particular
day, Nelson, the youngest son, enters the house in a panic to hide
the more obvious religious relics from the sight of his "gringo" girlfriend,
who is visiting for the weekend. Nelson's mother, Dahlia, is obsessed
with retrieving her husband from his new girlfriend; and Eddie, her
elder son, shows up in a van with his failed life and pregnant girlfriend.
But the "real" pandemonium is caused by sweet, long-suffering Dolores;
Dahlia's oldmaid sister, when she sees the face of the Holy Virgin
in a tortilla. This miracle brings hordes of believers and reporters
to camp out on the Cruz's lawn to await further miracles. As the
family struggles with beliefs and conflicts, old and new, the endurance
of family love is revealed to be the real miracle. Play. Keith Waterhouse, adapted from his own novel Pulling himself out of the rut of his middle-aged executive lifestyle,
Roger Piper stumbles into a sixteen-month tempestuous affair with
the effervescent Angela Caxton, and is thrown into a whirlwind of
romances and champagne. He discovers that Angie does not share his
obsession with their relationship and after multiple crises the affair
ends in tragedy. Play. Thornton Wilder With compelling simplicity Wilder depicts New Hampshire village
life through the story of two families. George and Emily grow up
together as children, they fall in love and marry. All too soon Emily
dies and goes into the village cemetery where the former inhabitants
of Grover's Corner welcome her to the peace that can never be understood
by the living. When first produced, Our Town was considered a remarkable
theatrical innovation and it still has a universality that does not
date. Period 1901-11 Drama. Anne Devlin. 5 men, 3 women (flexible casting). Unit Set Three women in Belfast dream of escaping the political peril that
marks their lives, but cannot because of the family loyalties instilled
in them and their complicated relationships with men. Frieda is a
would-be singer whose pro-IRA father disowns her, sending her into
the arms of a Workers' Party organiser and anti-IRA zealot. Her sister
Josie is in love with an IRA leader, but ends up carrying the child
of another man. And Donna, who waits five years for her lover to
emerge from prison and finds that the overbearing and unfaithful
man wasn't worth the wait. |