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The Tibetan Book Of the Dead (or "How Not To Do It Again") A Theatre Piece. Jean-Claude van Itallie. Based on the classic Buddhist text, the play deals with the transmigration
of the soul, and the choices to be made as the spirit hovers in suspended
animation. Brilliantly theatrical in concept and execution, the piece
blends music, mime, dance movement and spoken dialogue to create
the perpetual stream of colours, sensations and illusions which assail
the transient soul and seek to distract it from its proper course.
Visualised as taking place within a human skull, the play depicts
the soul re-experiencing the life cycle as, momentarily, it floats
free from the trials of earthly existence, while striving to overcome
the ambitions, wants, jealousies and fears which can obscure the
crucial turning point at which it can rejoin the living "like a king" -
head held high and with the errors of previous existence both comprehended
and surmounted. Play, Jeffrey Sweet. Invited by an old friend, who is now a faculty member, to guest-direct
a student production at a small midwestern college, Walker, whose
New York theatre career has reached a standstill, warily accepts.
Sharp-witted, humorously caustic and bohemian in conduct, Walker
quickly shakes up the tightly knit academic community, which his
candor sweeps across like a hurricane. While hard-pressed to fathom
Walker's laid-back nature, the others, students and faculty alike,
quickly find themselves confiding in him, and emotional attachments
soon develop - principally one between Walker and his friend's divorced
sister, an affair which dashes the hopes of another young professor
and yet is doomed, for both, by the ghosts of past loves. In time
the central questions are whether Walker will accept an offer to
stay on at the college, and, beyond that, how he will deal with the
possibility of another kind of love put forth by his old friend -
and it is in the working out of these questions that the warmth and
wit and sensitivity of this deftly written play are realised to their
fullest. Play. Guy Hibbert Nancy, recently widowed, lives in a luxurious beach house overlooking
the sea near Puerto Escondido on the Pacific coast of Mexico. When
her son, Jack, arrives after a year-long disappearance she is overjoyed
to see him but perturbed by his mysterious lifestyle. Fuelled by
alcohol, Jack's emotional turmoil begins to disrupt Nancy's peace
of mind and to fracture her new relationship with the sensitive Charles.
Then Jack discovers that Nancy is financially supporting Charles.
One of the men has to go ... Play. J. B. Priestley Mrs Conway takes life cheerfully: she and her daughters enjoy entertaining
and, although in 1919 war's shadow still lingers, the Conways look
forward optimistically. Act II is the same room in 1937 and all the
happy homes of 1919 are more or less in ruin. The married girls are
miserable, those left spinsters are disillusioned and bitter. Act
III returns to 1919 where Mrs Conway and the girls cheerfully look
forward to a happy future. Comedy. Alan Ayckbourn When womaniser Graham meets his employee Peter's fiancee, he makes
a bee-line for her as usual. However, the young lady strays instead
to Graham's brother-in-law Leonard, a poetic fumbler who holds conversations
with the garden gnome. When Leonard half-heartedly tries to tell
Peter about the relationship, cricket, football and even draughts
supersede all other considerations in Peter's sports-mad mind. Comedy Ronald Alexander. A sequel to Time Out For Ginger. The setting is a familiar one: the former home of Ginger Carol and
her family. But now Ginger is Mrs. Edwin Davis, with two children
of her own, and a new generation is in residence. Ginger herself
is as much of a rebel as ever, but while she believes in her daughter
Winnie's sexual freedom, she draws the line at letting her boyfriend,
Sam, move in with her. Her husband, Eddie, otherwise a conservative
sort, thinks the idea is fine - and might even prompt the young couple
to get married. The situation is further complicated when Winnie
announces that she is pregnant - and while Sam now resolves to do
the right thing, she rebuffs his proposal. At the same time, Ginger's
teenaged son, Tinker, is giving evidence of being attracted to his
own sex, despite his cosy relationship with Billie, the stunning
girl next door. The only one who seems untouched by all this is Ginger's
septuagenarian father, who pretends to be ailing and absent-minded,
when the truth is that he is the strongest, and sharpest, of them
all. Needless to say, the complications are numerous - and hilarious
- as Tinker elopes with the lovely Billie (he's definitely not gay
after all); Winnie moves out and concedes that in time, she might
consider marrying Sam; and Ginger and Eddie are left with the placid,
but not entirely welcome, prospect of life without their lively offspring
underfoot. Comedy. Norman Krasna and Groucho Marx. Ed. Davis, General Manager of a washing machine company, is a successful business man who needs a long vacation. When an elderly employee of his company retires, Ed, too, dreams of going away with his wife to enjoy his declining years without business worries and ulcers. But Ed and his wife, Kay, cannot call their souls their own when the boss and his wife force them to accept engagements for business reasons and otherwise make life miserable. So Ed speaks his mind to his boss and is fired. The next act finds them settled in an apartment in Florida. Everything promises happiness, even the simple neighbours. Soon, however, the Davises begin to get on each other's nerves and when their daughter and her husband appear, Ed secretly plans to go into business again. But these plans turn out disastrously and Ed is faced with bankruptcy. He is even ready to ask for a humble job with his ex-boss, when the big boss appears. The boss misses Ed and fears for the security of his company, and Ed is offered every inducement to return. Ed and his wife are delighted to return to New York and the things which only a big city can offer. Play. Constance Cox Joanna has taken refuge in an empty manor house after her father
tried to force her to have an abortion. The arrival of Frank, a runaway
from a robbery and hit-and-run accident, disrupts her plans. Their
initial dislike of each other turns to love, and when Joanna goes
into labour unexpectedly early, causing their discovery and Frank's
arrest, they both look forward to the future when they will once
again have a time for loving. Raymond Dyer : Comedy/Thriller This comedy thriller keeps you guessing until the final curtain falls. Quick, slick and thoroughly entertaining, the play holds the attention of the audience from beginning to end. The action is dynamic and with a neat twist at the end, the real murderer gives himself away by a single word. Play. Alan Ayckbourn Gerry Stratton has organised a family dinner with his sons Glyn
and Adam at his favourite restaurant to celebrate his wife Laura's
fifty-fourth birthday. The occasion suggests a happy domestic scene,
but gradually we are made aware of the family skeletons. The present
opens up to have Glyn's story move forward in time and Adam's backward,
while at the centre Gerry and Laura pick apart their marriage and
recall first love. Comedy. Ronald Alexander. The story starts out with a fairly staid banker who needs some sort
of creative release and finds it in lecturing to local high school
classes on the need for self-fulfilment. It quickly develops however,
that one of the banker's daughters - the youngest of three - has
been very much impressed by her father's exhortations. She has decided
that her own true fulfilment can best be realised by going out for
the football team. Any number of complications result: the father's
job is jeopardised because the bank president doesn't approve; the
girl's elder sisters insist that their social life has been blighted
- especially the sister whose boyfriend is captain of the football
team; and the girl football player herself finds that playing football
and being a girl aren't always compatible, particularly when her
own boyfriend disapproves of what she's doing. After any number of
riotous mishaps, the play ends on a happily tender note with the
whole family going out to see one of the other sisters in the high
school play, as Ginger is escorted by her reconciled boyfriend. Play. Leslie Darbon After Maggie's husband Don leaves home on a business trip, Alan
arrives at the house expecting an intimate interlude. Instead he
finds himself handcuffed and faced by Maggie and three women of their
local set. He is to be put on trial for causing the death of another
woman. During the trial unforeseen revelations surprise all the participants,
including Don who, returning unexpectedly, becomes involved in the
Defence. The proceedings culminate in a few moments of violent action. Play. Hugh Leonard When Bea and John visit Ellie and PJ., John explains his theory that so many people are longing for the simplicity of bygone days that Time has ruptured and people are disappearing back into the past. Similarly people we want to see again are appearing by the score! The hilarity dissolves later to show the strains of suburbia underneath until PJ. wishes himself back - and disappears. Period next year Drama. Edward Albee. Tiny Alice begins with a venomous exchange between a lawyer
and a cardinal whose contempt for each other careens back to their
school days. Eventually, the lawyer offers the cardinal $100 million
a year at the request of Miss Alice, the world's richest woman. Julian,
the cardinal's secretary, is to come to Miss Alice's castle to complete
the details, but while there, Julian falls prey to Miss Alice as
she contrives to make him her lover. Through the related transmutations
of religious ecstasy and orgasmic pleasure, Julian's true feelings
are terrifyingly revealed and the stage is set for the electrifying
climax of this eloquent, compelling play. Play. Barbara Lebow December 24th and 25th, amidst card board shelters and trash-can
hearths, Otis Pope, a sardonic army veteran, decides who is allowed
to stay in the enclave, and who must go. Currently part of this "family" are
Verna, a disoriented frequently pregnant, sometimes gritty, other
times childlike woman; her nameless and mute eight-year-old son;
Charlie, a down-on-his-luck unemployed blue collar worker; Azalee
Hodge, an outspoken woman trying to climb back up and Filomeno Cordero,
a recent immigrant from Central America, who finds the group on Christmas
eve. Discovering a worn out copy of Dickens' A Christmas Carol, the
group responds to Verna's pleas to re-enact the old story as a gift
for her son. She can't wait to be Tiny Tim. The others cast Pope
in the Scrooge role, though he resists playing along. In a revisionist
inspiration, Pope becomes MC of the "Tiny Tim Telethon."
Filo, unfamiliar with the story, assumes a reggae interpretation
of the wrong Marley's ghost. Verna becomes delusional, Azalee wants
to leave, Charlie tries to keep the peace, but antagonisms, opinions,
addictions and moments of violence overtake them. The tale is never
completed and the family is broken up, the boy left alone. One by
one, willingly or not, the characters depart with no promises for
the future, though Pope then grudgingly returns. Comedy-thriller. Norman Robbins Some months have passed since the ghastly events in Monument House,
well-known to those familiar with Norman Robbins' earlier A
Tomb with a View. (Previous acquaintance with the Tombs is
not required!) Now Mortimer Crayle, the lawyer, has gathered the
last remaining Tomb family members (as offbeat a bunch as the original
occupants) at the old house, ostensibly to inform them about their
inheritance. But Crayle has designs on the inheritance which demand
the death of all Tombs ... Play. Louise Page Louise Page has written, in darting, daring, time-chopping structure, a play about breast cancer in which she has to deal with dominant definitions of femininity in order to probe the pain in the problem. As she herself says, 'once I started talking openly about writing a play on mastectomy, women whom I had no idea had had mastectomies began to confide their experiences to me. I began to understand more and more the taboo nature of the subject I was writing about and how much women wanted the subject discussed.' |