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Baal.
Play. Bertolt Brecht Baal, a poet and singer, drunk, lazy, selfish and ruthless, seduces (among others) a disciple's seventeen year-old mistress, who drowns herself. He mixes with tramps and drivers and sings in a cheap nightclub. With his friend the composer Ekart he wanders through the country, drinking and fighting. Sophie, pregnant by him, follows them and likewise drowns herself. Baal seduces Ekart's mistress, then kills him. Hunted by the police and deserted by the woodcutters, he dies alone in a forest hut. The
Baby in (The Evil Doers
& The Baby) : Chris Hannan Set in Rome in 78 BC with dagger-men on
the street, the mob rioting, and bodies dumped in the Tiber,
The Baby is an epic, complete with heightened
language, earth-shattering emotion, weighty moral dilemmas,
low-brow comedy and disturbing bloody tragedy. It is also a
simple love story. Baby
with the Bath Water.
Comedy. Christopher Durang This bitingly satiric black comedy, which enjoyed a long off-Broadway run, begins with Helen and John deciding their newly born child is a girl and naming it Daisy - which leads to all manner of future emotional and personality problems because Daisy is actually a boy. Brilliantly theatrical and wildly hilarious, the play charts the saga of Daisy's struggle to establish his identity. Babylon
Gardens. Play. Timothy Mason,
Bill and Jean are a young couple living in New York's East Village struggling to overcome the death in childbirth of their first-born. Bill's job as a nurse/anaesthetist brings him face to face with life's harsh realities on a daily basis. Jean is a painter valiantly endeavouring to paint again. Day after day she brings her easel to the East River where she finds a good urban landscape to paint and where one day she also finds Hector, a young boy who fishes there, and who Jean tries to take under her wing. While Bill finds solace in the memories of his elderly patients and in helping Opal, a homeless woman, Jean attempts to get to know Hector, only to have him turn on her in a scene of terrifying violence. Retreating to a world of her own as a result of the attack, Jean remains city-shocked and incapable of action. Bill, needing to commit himself to something, no matter what, brings Opal to live in the room he and Jean had been preparing for their lost child. The
Bacchae. Play.
Euripides, translated by Neil Curry A lively, modern English translation of Euripides' last and greatest play which depicts the turbulent arrival of the Dionysian religion in Greece. Bacchae
: Euripides. Trans K. McLeish & F. Raphael First performed in Athens in 405 BC this
bloodthirsty story still has a timeless theatrical power.
The half-god Dionysos returns to Thebes intent on punishing
his family for rejecting him. Dionysos persuades his cousin
Pentheus, King of Thebes, to disguise himself as a woman so
he can witness the Theban women celebrating the wild
Bacchanalian rites. Pentheus's mother mistakes Pentheus for
a lion and tears him to pieces. But that only marks the
beginning of Dionysos's revenge. Bad
Company. Play. Simon
Bent A group of twenty-somethings hangs out on
the sea-front of a northern resort at the end of the summer
season, finding little to relieve the futility and boredom
of their lives: they gamble in amusement arcades, bicker in
cafes, lust on the beach ... Casual sex, mindless violence
and comic clashes of outlook permeate this entertaining,
contemporary and humane play which paints a believable,
touching portrait of modern youth. Bad
Weather : Robert Holman Following a fight at a local Chinese in
Middlesborough in which a man is badly injured, one man is
sent to prison. The other man involved goes free, but it is
a freedom full of burden. Out of the blue, a figure from the
family past arrives and another kind of escape is on offer.
The emotional fluidity of Bad Weather's characters,
their capacity for surprising - almost shocking - changes of
direction, and their literacy in discussing how they feel,
makes this sincere, absorbing play as contemporary as
anything by the new nihilists. First staged by the RSC,
1998. Ballerina.
Play. Arne Skouen This deeply moving play is a poignant
examination of the resistance of ex-ballerina, Edith, to be
parted from her autistic daughter, Malin against strong
opposition from family and friends. Edith has built a
language of imagery and ballet-related movement which
enables Malin and herself to communicate. Now circumstances
force her to make a desperate plea for help to Birger, her
husband, and their son Audun, in order to preserve their
life together. Balmoral.
Comedy. Michael Frayn It is 1937. Twenty years earlier the Revolution took place in Britain instead of Russia and the Soviet Republic of Great Britain is at the height of the purges. The royal residence of Balmoral is now a State Writer's Home with Godfrey Winn, Warwick Deeping, Enid Blyton and Hugh Walpole among its current inmates. Upon this very entertaining premise, Michael Frayn has constructed a witty, ingenious farce which was presented at the Bristol Old Vic in 1987. The
Bandwagon. Play.
Terence Frisby The Botterills are a fertile family. Mum,
elder daughter and younger daughter Aurora are all
imminently expecting. Aurora announces that her lot is
quins. When a newspaper and the TV take her up, bringing in
thousands of pounds, dismay turns to rapture. But Aurora
must be married. The father is flown back from Hong Kong and
they are married, the service turning to a race against time
as all three women start labour pains at the same
moment. Barefoot
in the Park. Comedy. Neil
Simon Corrie and Paul are newlyweds who have
just moved into their cold eyrie of an apartment. Corrie is
starry-eyed, Paul less so after staggering up five flights.
Their house seems to be populated by unusual people, the
most bohemian being Victor whom Corrie finds entertaining.
Conic tries matchmaking between Victor and her lonely mother
but after a disastrous dinner party she learns that walking
barefoot in the park may not necessarily denote joie de
vivre - in February it is simply silly! Barnaby
and the Old Boys.
Play. Keith Baxter The Morgan family are gathered for one
final celebration in their childhood home in Wales before it
is sold. Tensions begin to rise, and when Hywel returns
after fifteen years in Canada with an unexpected lover, who
is s both male and black, violent prejudice is revealed. The
attempt to recreate the Wales of their youth turns into a
nightmare, in which family skeletons tumble out of every
closet and which ends in tragedy. Bartholomew Fair : Ben Jonson 10-18m, 8f, 10m/f, doubling. Classic comedy/drama. Simple set. The annual Fair for St Bartholomew's Day
is a bawdy celebration peopled by tricksters, thieves,
prostitutes, pedlars and entertainers. Also drawn to the
festivities are a group of ordinary people who encounter a
range of colourful characters trying to rob, cheat, mock or
beat them. As they become separated from each other, they
find their respectable lives turned upside down, and their
intolerant attitudes challenged by what they experience.
First performed in 1631. Recently revived by the RSC,
1998. Battle
of Angels. Play. Tennessee
Williams As in its later, and substantially rewritten version (entitled Orpheus Descending) the play deals with the arrival of a virile young drifter, Val Xavier, in a sleepy, small town in rural Mississippi. Taking a job in a store his smouldering animal magnetism draws out the latent sexual passion in the love starved store keeper, whilst her husband lies dying upstairs. A sense of inevitable tragedy grows and there is a denouement of overwhelming and chilling intensity. Bazaar
(in Spanish Plays) David Planell. Trans J.
Clifford In an attempt to be famous for a day
Hassan, the owner of a bric-a-brac shop, enlists his
neighbour Anton to help make a video for a You've Been
Framed style TV programme. In the process, poisoned
undercurrents of racism rise to the surface. Premiered at
the Royal Court, 1998. Bazaar
and Rummage. Comedy.
Sue Townsend Gwenda, an ex-agoraphobic, leads a self-help group of three who have been unable to leave their homes for a variety of reasons. She forces them to help at a local bazaar, enlisting the support of Miss, a trainee social-worker. While sorting through the rummage their individual fears erupt but calm is restored by the ever-sensible Fliss. As they leave the hall it is apparent their agoraphobia is not cured but they have made the effort.
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