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Play. Clifford Odets. The story tells of a woman whose physical and spiritual wants are disarmingly normal - a sort of anomaly in our modern, complex city life. This woman finds herself between a dentist, who is unhappily married, and an old gentleman who has everything to offer her except youth. Of plot in the ordinary sense, there is very little, but with characters such as Mr. Odets draws, there is no necessity for a story in the conventional sense. The play is brilliantly written and offers and extraordinary opportunity for the depiction of human beings at odd with themselves and their environments. Comedy: Sidney Sheldon. Mark Baxter is a young scientist, drafted to work on a new Army
missile programme. His stay in Washington wins him the rank of Colonel,
the cover of a national magazine, and the hand of his next door neighbour,
Eleanor Winston. Eleanor is the rich, beautiful, and very ambitious
daughter of a U.S. Senator, and she is determined that the man she
marries will go even further than her father. They are set to go
off to a top-secret missile launching when complications arise, in
the form of an alluring blonde named Liz Brown, who moves into the
adjoining apartment. Liz is gifted with ESP She tells Mark he won't
be leaving town with the others (he doesn't); she predicts a long
shot at the race track (the horse wins); and she informs Mark that
... (but that would be giving away the funniest twist in the play!).
At any rate, the first missile fails and spirits go down, a second
try makes it and spirits go up, but Marks romantic difficulties grow
increasingly complicated. Along the way the Army, the Navy, official
Washington, and the human race in general come in for their share
of ribbing but everything gets straightened out in the end. Peter Ustinov : Comedy The play is set in a mythical country lying smack on the border
between East and West. Full of the most delightful comic satire on
modern times and international affairs, the play follows the frustrated
romance between the son of the Russian ambassador and the daughter
of the American ambassador against a background of inept diplomacy.We
meet the president of the smallest of all mythical countries. It
is so small that it has a standing army of two - and the army doesn't
even stand, but slouches. This country lies smack between the East
and the West, so each of these world divisions seeks to make the
President an ally. Russia sends an ambassador - a Romanoff, no less.
The US dispatches one of its typical business diplomats. One of several
high points of this delightful comedy is the scene in which the President
shuttles between the rival embassies, listening to their blandishments
and threats. This is a hilarious cartoon of diplomacy. Why the title, Romanoff
and Juliet? The Russian has a son and the American has a daughter
named Juliet and these two fall in love. And love has its sway. National
rivalries vanish as the parents are reconciled after a wedding which
is remarkable for its lunacy. Comedy. Bernard Slade Jason Carmichael, successful co-author of Broadway romantic comedies,
is about to marry a society belle and his collaborator is retiring
from the fray. Enter Phoebe Craddock, a mousy Vermont schoolteacher
and budding playwright and Jason acquires a talented, adoring collaborator.
Fame and success are theirs for ten years and then Jason's world
falls apart - his wife divorces him and Phoebe marries a journalist
and moves to Paris. Jason goes into decline but re-enter a chic,
successful Phoebe - and guess the ending! Ten Dialogues. Arthur Schnitzler. English version by Eric Bentley This is Schnitzler's popular roundelay of love, as practised in
Old Vienna, and as told in ten interlocking scenes. Each scene is
made for two persons, and each person plays two consecutive scenes,
serving alternately as the link between them. Thus the soldier of
the first scene leaves his lady of the evening to appear in the next
scene with a parlour maid. An amusing tour de force, popular
throughout the world. Farce. Ben Travers Gerald rents Rookery Nook where his wife, Clara, will join him later.
He is agreeably surprised by a pretty stranger called Rhoda who comes
running to him for protection against her irascible German stepfather.
Gerald allows her to stay in one of the bedrooms but as she is clad
only in pyjamas, it is vital to conceal her presence from nosey neighbours.
Rhoda gets herself some clothes just in time before Clara arrives
but Gerald has some difficulty in convincing Clara of his innocence.
Period 1920s Comedy. John Murray and Allen Boretz. A nimble-witted producer, living on credit with several actors in
a Broadway hotel, is desperately in need of a good script. He finds
one, and, by great good luck, he also finds an angel with $15,000.
The play shows how, during a hectic few days, the, producer plays
hide-and-seek with the angel who wants to withdraw his financial
support, manages to outwit creditors, and at the very last moments
puts over his play in spite of the most ludicrous and unexpected
obstacles. Comedy/Drama. Edith Sommer. Nancy Fallon has, some eight years back, run off with a foreign
correspondent leaving a seven-year-old daughter at the mercy of an
unloving father. The bitter father has been at work on the child
these long years past. Now he is thinking of marrying again, and
Bridget is temporarily shipped off to her mother. When Bridget comes,
she is a chillingly defensive, arrogantly independent customer. She
has been taught that it is most unsophisticated to mention one parent
in the presence of the other, she is sure that it is unwise ever
to love anyone, and she is eating her heart out in her defiant loneliness.
Bridget's mother and her new husband are eager to have Bridget remain
with them, as are a group of kindly neighbours. Dick and his sister
Jane, who live next door, do their best to make friends with Bridget
who insists on remaining aloof. Eventually she succumbs to their
genuine friendliness and is about to go with Dick to a dance when
his old girlfriend from out of town turns up and Bridget is left
without a date. At the same time she discovers her father's reasons
for sending her on the visit. The new world she's begun to build
with other people falls apart. However, the love and understanding
of her mother and the friends in her new home at last make an impression,
and Bridget realises that she is really wanted here - and that this
is where she wants to stay. Dick comes back, aware now that he prefers
Bridget to the old girlfriend, and Bridget is at last part of a real
family. Play. Milcha Sanchez-Scott. The setting is a simple wood-frame house in the American Southwest.
Hector, a young campesino, is apprehensively awaiting the return
of his father, Gallo, who has been serving a jail term for manslaughter.
Gallo, who is obsessed with cock fighting, is a philandering, high-living
macho type, who finds it difficult to communicate with, much less
understand, his contemplative, questioning son. The crux of the play
is the battle for supremacy between the father, who wants to exploit
the fighting cock which his son has been looking after for him, and
Hector, who argues that they should sell the animal and use the proceeds
for family needs. Drawn into the dispute are Hector's sister, Angela,
an otherworldly creature who wears angel wings and blots out unpleasant
reality by hiding under the front porch; his lusty, profane aunt,
Chata, whose overt sexuality is both fascinating and disturbing to
her impressionable nephew; and his long suffering mother, Juana,
who wishes that her family would stop bickering and live in peace.
Mingling scenes of explosive drama with moments of fanciful imagery,
the play deftly blends its two naiures as it moves to its conclusion
when, in a theatrically magical moment, illusion and reality achieve
a remarkable synthesis. Play. Arnold Wesker This is the second play of the trilogy which opens with Chicken
Soup with Barley. Beatie returns for a holiday to her fenland
farm home trying to impose on her stolid family the ideas of a
young Jewish intellectual, Ronnie, whom she believes will marry
her. But, awaiting his arrival, slowly Beatie realises he will
never come and her famous final speech exults that Ronnie has taught
her independence and how to free herself from him. Period 1950s Play. Frank Vickery Griff has discovered that his son Nigel is not only a drag queen
but gay; hours later, Nigel is in hospital having been hurt in a
car crash in which his lover, Kevin, has incurred much worse injuries.
Robust, sensible Ruby, Griff's wife, has much to deal with - Nigel's
fears, Griff's prejudices, her own confused emotions, Kevin's parents
- and has to use every resource at her disposal to keep the peace. Drama. Horton Foote. The Robedaux family has been divided by the exigencies of an unhappy
fate. Julie Robedaux has moved back to her family's house with the
children, Horace, Jr. and Beth Ruth, and has enlisted the help of
her sister, Callie, in trying to operate the old place as a boarding
house. Her husband, Horace Sr., ravaged by alcohol and disease, awaits
the end of his wasted life at his mother's home, pathetically hopeful
that he will still be able to make amends to his wife and children,
and guide his son in the study of law. This fragile strand of hope
is broken when it is acknowledged that the boarding house is a losing
proposition, and that the only course of action for Julia, Callie
and the children is to move to Houston in search of work. Horace
Jr. refuses to go. As a violent storm breaks he rushes off, and when
he eventually comes home again, after having been given up for lost,
the family has gone to Houston and his father is dead. When she learns
that he is still alive, Horace's mother comes back from Houston and,
in a poignant, touching scene, tells the boy that she has remarried,
and that she can't ask him to come back with her, at least for the
present. Horace stays behind and starts over again. He also has his
father's law books, and the gentle guidance and concern of a family
friend, Jim Howard, in turning back to them. The play ends on a warm
note of hopefulness as Horace and Mr. Howard begin to study - and
to help each other find a way in the long night of loneliness. |