Quartet of plays. Graham Swannell This comedy quartet, witty and penetrating, treats its theme of adultery and marriage with a moving and unforgettable compassion. 'Sharp, funny and pleasingly idiomatic.' Financial Times ' ... full of pitiless observation and compassionate hilarity.' Sunday Times
Play. Robert Bolt The play tells the story of the Russian Revolution and its chief
personalities through the life of Lenin, opening at Gorky's villa
on Capri in 1910 and ending just after Lenin's death. Period 1910-20 Sam Shepard : Light Drama The evening begins with a bang. The deceptive calm of a family restaurant,
filled with two disgruntled customers and an inept waitress, is disrupted
by off-stage sounds of war and destruction. The real disruption begins
with the entrance of the Colonel, a middle-aged brute of a man wearing
the medals and uniform of a commander, who wheels on Stubbs, a mute
paraplegic veteran who served with the Colonel's son. According to
the Colonel, they have come "to toast the death of my son and have
a nice dessert." While the customers, named only White Man and White
Woman, and the waitress, Glory Bee, watch, the Colonel dominates
and tyrannizes the stage. Stubbs slowly regains the power of speech
and memory, and the tables turn when he reveals his enormous battle
scar and hints that he is the Colonel's son. In increasingly bizarre
and violent scenes, including a whipping and a food fight, States
of Shock reaches its shattering conclusion. Play. Nell Dunn First seen at the Theatre Royal, Stratford, London in 1981, transferring to the Comedy Theatre later in the year. Set in a dilapidated Turkish Bath somewhere in the East End of London where five women of all conditions come to bare their bodies, souls and fantasies, Steaming is a warm-hearted, often humorous portrayal of women coming to know the nature of each other's lives. '... full of lively, ribald humour.' Evening Standard ' ... a lovely play suffused with affection.' The Times Play. Robert Harling Hilarious and touching, this play for six women is set in a beauty
parlour in Louisiana. Through four scenes spanning three years the
staff and customers engage in small-town gossip but we see a deep
strength and purposefulness emerge when Shelby - a diabetic - dies
following a kidney transplant operation. ' ... warm-hearted and sentimental
... ' Guardian Comedy/Drama. Robert Harling. The action is set in Truvy's beauty salon in Chinquapin, Louisiana,
where all the ladies who are "anybody" come to have their hair done.
Helped by her eager new assistant, Annelle (who is not sure whether
or not she is still married), the outspoken, wise-cracking Truvy
dispenses shampoos and free advice to the towns rich curmudgeon,
Ouiser, ("I'm not crazy, I've just been in- a bad mood for 40 years");
an eccentric millionaire, Miss Clairee, who has a raging sweet tooth;
and the local social leader, M'Lynn, whose daughter, Shelby (the
prettiest girl in town), is about to marry a "good ole boy."
Filled with hilarious repartee and not a few acerbic but humorously
revealing verbal collisions, the play moves toward tragedy when,
in the second act, the spunky Shelby (who is a diabetic) risks pregnancy
and forfeits her life. The sudden realization of their mortality
affects the others, but also draws on the underlying strength-and
lovewhich give the play, and its characters, the special quality
to make them truly touching, funny and marvelously amiable company
in good times and bad. (in Dutch Plays) - Frans Strijards. Trans D.Couling A funeral party is taking place for a rich but irresponsible financier,
who seems to have committed suicide. Strijards explores the way the
characters relate to each other and their ultimate failure to communicate
how they feel about their lives. The action develops like a dance
as the characters circle around each other. Stephen Foster or Weep No More My Lady Romantic Play with music. Earl Hobson Smith. This play unfolds the beautiful romance between Stephen Foster, America's great song composer, and Susan Pentland and Jane Denny McDowell, at one time Pittsburgh's most dashing young ladies. 7 men, 5 women. Interior. Stephen and Susan have always loved each other and are engaged to be married. But Jane, too, has always loved Stephen. Stephen's unsympathetic family, however, force him to leave for Cincinnati to take a job in his brother's shipping yards, to forget his desire to write songs, and finally to prove that he can support a wife. While he is away, his rival, Andrew Robinson, woos, wins, and marries Susan. Stephen is determined to live his own life in the face of all opposition. He returns to Pittsburgh, learns what Susan has done, and marries Jane. This does not alter Stephen's love for Susan, nor Susan's for Stephen. But Jane's charm and understanding saves the situation. Time also draws Susan to Andrew's standards, thus helping Stephen to fall out of love with Susan and in love with Jane. This romantic story of the most interesting part of Foster's life, dramatic in itself, is made doubly attractive by the inclusion of all the most famous Foster songs. Stephen Vincent Benét's Stories of America Narrative Theatre. Andrew Leslie. Partly spoken, partly acted, partly mimed, the program uses basic theatre techniques to project the spirit, poignancy, humour and excitement of America's developing years, while achieving a remarkable pertinence to the present day. Drawing on the lively and fanciful American tales of Stephen Vincent
Benét, the substance of the program ranges from the Colonial
years and the Revolutionary War to the opening of the West and the
burgeoning of the American heartland. Using creative theatre concepts
to bring the stories alive on stage, with short poems and simple
musical interpolations to enhance and heighten the flow of action,
it not only captures the vitality and humour of Benéts imaginative
creations, but also makes the lesson of their wit and wisdom powerfully
relevant to the present troubled times. Comedy. Richard Harris Stepping Out, which enjoyed a hugely successful West End
run and won Evening Standard Best Comedy Award for 1984,
is a warm and very funny play about the lives of a group of women
(and one man) attending a weekly tap-dance class in a dingy North
London church hall. As the play progresses, the class's dancing improves
to such an extent that by the climax, a grand charity show performance,
they have been transformed into triumphant tappers, worthy of any
chorus line. Play. Hugh Whitemore, from the works of Stevie Smith The play follows the life and career of the poetess, Stevie Smith.
Stevie's tragicomic life is portrayed by means of 'naturalistic'
dialogue scenes, by her own reminiscences and comments, and by numerous
examples of her poems, spoken mainly by herself but sometimes by
the Man who also plays several parts. The passage of time extends
from the 1950s to the 1960s, up to her death at the age of sixty-nine,
time changes in the simple set being indicated by lighting cues. Drama. Sebastian Barry Set in Baltinglass, Co. Dublin, in about 1932, The Steward of
Christendom sees Lear-like Thomas Dunne, ex-Chief Superintendent
of the Dublin Metropolitan Police, trying to break free of history
and himself. The play took London by storm when it premiered at
the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs in March 1995. Since then it has
won Sebastian Barry numerous awards. 'An authentic masterpiece
... I venture to suggest that not even O'Casey or Synge wrote better
than this.' Guardian. Period c. 1932 Play. Emily Mann. Shaped by the author from conversations with the people whose experience
she sets forth, the play explores the way in which Vietnam has affected
three lives: a Marine veteran; his estranged wife; and his mistress.
Seated at a table, with slides used occasionally to amplify and.
illustrate their comments, the three tell their various stories.
The man confesses that he killed a Vietnamese family in cold blood
and, carrying the seeds of violence with him, returned home to brutalize
his pregnant wife. The wife, disillusioned and unhappy, wants to
ignore the terrors that haunt her husband, believing that, in time,
the awful memories will fade, while the mistress, an angry feminist,
blames the man's destructiveness on the forces which conditioned
him before he went to Vietnam. In the end these three become a metaphor
for the nation as a whole - still trying to understand, and overcome,
the lingering trauma which is the bitter legacy of the Vietnam experience. |