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Play. Larry Ketron. The scene is a small town in South Carolina, where Hodge, a Vietnam
veteran, shares his house with Vernie, his childlike girl friend,
and Sheryl, the widow of a talented but obscure novelist and a close
friend of his late mother. Nervous and unsettled, Hodge continually
castigates Vernie, no matter how hard she tries to please him, and
also derides Sheryl, although she is old and wise enough to try to
turn a deaf ear to his rantings. The arrival of his Army buddy Richard,
who now manages a bookstore in New York City, further aggravates
Hodge's unruliness, as though to somehow make him even more aware
of the fact that the "good life" has passed him by. Richard is accompanied
by his mentor and lover Carolyn, a sleek and sexy lady whose bantering
rapport with Richard, and evident concern for Vernie and Sheryl,
also point up Hodges own lack of grace and learning. Eventually Vernie,
finding her own voice through the help of the others, threatens to
leave Hodge, whereupon his defiant facade finally begins to crumble
- giving promise that he will try, at last, to temper his inability
to relate meaningfully to the world and to curb his compulsion to
strike out at those who seek to offer him the only solace that he
is destined to know. Comedy. John Guare. One of "the world's oldest living promising young playwrights," Bing
Ringling is finally about to be produced-with play number 844. But,
unfortunately, his lady producer, having had a series of successes,
now yearns for a flop - so she can savor the sweet taste of failure
and then make a comeback. Hoping to salvage his play,. Bing tries
to enlist the aid of his boyhood friend Tybalt Dunleavy, now a Hollywood
star, but he too is having something of an identity crisis. Bing's
odyssey leads on to hilarious confrontations with his musical collaborator
Anatol Torah (a wildly spaced-out composer); his oddball parents
(who still cherish his dirty diapers); and his old girlfriend (now
unhappily married and mired in the past). Thereafter the phantasmagoria
continues until, in the end, and as Clive Barnes puts it: "Bing is
at the still center of his own nightmare, wandering like Ulysses
through the cavernous passages of his life and finally determining
just what it costs to be rich and famous." Play. A.R. Gurney. Comprised of a series of vignettes and interrelated scenes, presented
with a minimum of props and scenery and flowing together with resourceful
theatricality, the story of Richard Cory is that of a well-born young
man who seems to have everything the world can offer. He is handsome,
rich, successful in his law practice, respected in the community
and an idealised husband and father. And yet, as we move ahead through
the various episodes of his life, it is apparent that his good fortune
has also brought him growing dissatisfaction and unease. He is disturbed
by the crassness of the changes taking place in his city; by the
eroding standards of his lifelong friends; by the alienation he feels
from his wife and children. Seeking fulfilment he takes a mistress;
he becomes involved in good works; he tries to expand his intellectual
capacities - while, throughout, continuing to protect the "good name" which
family and position have thrust on him. He is, and must always be,
a gentleman. But perhaps, as the play so poignantly suggests, it
is this very fact which leads Richard Cory, the glittering paragon
so envied by all, to go home one fine day and put a bullet through
his head. Drama. Gordon Daviot This is a sympathetic study of Richard 11, laying special stress
on Richard's desire to foster the arts and crafts, and to promote
the cause of peace, both in Ireland and France. How the young and
gradually spoilt and embittered, as well as favourite-ridden King
was impeded by the inveterate prejudices of his uncles, especially
Gloucester, is shown vividly in the course of twelve scenes, ending
with the penultimate stage of Richard II's life. Period 1385-97 Play: Lee Blessing David and Carolyn Rose would seem to "have it all" -a generous income,
two expensive cars, a son in a good college, and twenty-one years
of wedded bliss. Now, on their anniversary, they have returned, with
another couple, to the hotel in Red Wing, Minnesota, where they spent
their honeymoon. The other couple wants the Roses to join them in
the bar for a pre-dinner drink, but David, more in love than ever,
has other ideas and it is his amorous persistence which moves the
play quickly to its crisis point. To his shock and amazement, Carolyn
not only turns aside his overtures, but calmly announces that she
wants a divorce. Stunned, and then angry, David demands reasons,
but Carolyn can give none more cogent than that she doesn't like
the shape of his nose (and never has) and that he seems to her to
have "shrunk." No other man, no better life that she covets just
the awareness that their relationship has quietly but finally become
arid and empty. Unable to comprehend or accept Carolyn's infuriating
calmness in the face of this unexpected calamity, David baits her
into a fight, and then the underlying bitterness, which both of them
have tried to deny, explodes into destructive, emotionally shattering
fury. In the final scene of the play, wordless but deeply affecting,
a certain rapprochment is hinted at but one surely tempered by the
sad knowledge that things will never again be as they, perhaps naïvely,
had assumed they were. FEE, $50 per performance. Linda McLean Is murder ever justified? Even in defence of a child? And if you're
never caught, are you always in hiding? And though you may feel safe,
is it inevitable that there will be a day of Riddance? This
chilling emotional thriller about two men and a woman bound together
by the secrets of surviving a childhood in a Glasgow tenement was
premiered by Paines Plough at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, after
previews at the Chelsea Centre, London. Linda McLean's play is suffused
with wit, suspense and truth, a sober reminder that we can never
escape the sins of our past. Her earlier one-act, One Good Beating, was
part of Family, a trilogy of plays staged by the Traverse
Theatre Company in Spring 1999. Published alongside the premiere
production, this "Instant Playscript" is intended to reflect the
immediacy of the play on stage. It is printed directly from the author's
own disk prepared only a few days before opening night. The aim is
to give audiences at the theatre and readers all over the world instant
access to the best of current new writing as it hits the stage Arthur Miller Two women meet in a hospital intensive care ward, after each learns
of an automobile accident which has seriously injured their husband.
The two visitors, unknown to each other, soon realise that it is
the same accident, and indeed, is in fact the same man. Lyman Felt
is a bigamist. A successful middle-aged businessman, Lyman has juggled
two wives for nine years, ever since he was forced to choose between
the stability and status of his first wife Theo and the excitement
of his relationship with Leah, his mistress. Instead he chose both.
Through a series of flashbacks interspersed with Lyman's hospital
room, memory slips into fact as accusations fly between the women
and his daughter Bessie, but fact merges into fantasy as Lyman attempts
to justify his past actions. All of them, he points out, have been
happier in this time than ever before, but ultimately his innocent
selfishness results in psychologically bruised women scattered about
him, who ultimately make him pay the price by abandoning him. |