Racing
Demon.
Play. David Hare Racing
Demon focuses on the Church of England. A disparate
body, the Church now finds itself attracting unwanted
publicity, wracked by the dissension of its members on
matters of doctrine and practice and at odds with the
government. In this climate the Reverend Lionel Espy and his
team of clergymen struggle to make sense of their mission in
South London, as the arrival of a zealous young curate
intensifies their personal and professional problems. Rain.
Play. John Colton and Clemence Randolph. From the story
Miss Thompson by W. Somerset Maugham Torrential
rains have trapped a party of Europeans in a small hotel in
the South Seas. To the missionary Davidson and his wife, the
presence of the prostitute Sadie Thompson is an insult.
Davidson provokes a trial of strength between Sadie's love
of life and his own suppressed desires. On the point of
succeeding, he finds that the strength of his own
self-denial is insufficient. Period 1925 The
Rape of the Belt.
Comedy. Benn W. Levy The Amazons
have a perfect kingdom full of peacefully creative women who
have, through propaganda, created such a fearsome reputation
tat no-one dares attack. Heracles, who has to steal the belt
of the Amazon Queen for his ninth labour, would undoubtedly
have fallen victim to their charms had divine Hera not
intervened, turning the Amazons into warriors. Heracles
easily wins the belt, but he knows he has lost a paradise.
Period Ancient Greece RAPING
THE GOLD Drama 4M 1F 2
boys Flexible staging
In a small
Derbyshire town facing the closure of the local factory
works, members of the local archery club meet regularly for
what has become their only source of comfort in a community
beset with social and economic change. In the wake of his
wife's premature death from cancer, Gabby struggles to raise
his only daughter amid the growing pressures of redundancy
and a declining sense of self-worth. For Gabby, archery is
the only outlet he has left, and when the local cricket club
proposes to share the archer's field and build a modern
communal clubhouse in return, the membership is divided and
personal conflicts between the archers echo the larger
conflicts faced by the community caught between a betrayed
past and an abandoned future. A powerful and moving play
with a warm sense of humour which contrasts the hopes and
despairs of friends and family in a community torn apart by
events beyond their control. Rappaccini's
Daughter
(in Latin-American Plays) Octavio Paz. Trans. S. Doggart Based on a
short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne. When Giovanni comes to
stay in a rooom overlooking the strange overgrown garden of
Doctor Rappaccini, he has eyes only for his host's beautiful
daughter. But many men before have been warned away from
her, and slowly he discovers the terrible truth: that her
father is using her as part of an experiment on the human
will to live, and has turned her into a living phial of
poison ... Written 1956. First performed in this translation
in 1996. Rattle
of a Simple Man.
Play. Charles Dyer A friend bets
Percy fifty pounds that he will not spend the night with a
prostitute and do his duty like a man, so he goes home with
Cyrenne. When her brash jokes and open suggestiveness fail
to bring Percy up to scratch, the two start chatting and,
gradually, a bond grows up between them. A gentle blend of
humour, sentiment and emotion, the play depicts with charm
and perception how loneliness can drive people to opposite
extremes. Real
Estate.
Play. Louise Page First
performed at the Tricycle Theatre, London, in 1984, this is
a touching, sensitive play which stirs deep emotions. Jenny,
single and pregnant, returns to visit her mother after
twenty years, hoping to find some kind of assistance and
support, and possibly a home in which to raise her child. As
the play unfolds, the characters are visibly fighting to
penetrate each other's defences and ultimately Jenny
realises that her mother is not prepared to give up her
happiness for her daughter's sake.
The
Real Story of Puss in
Boots.
Play. David Foxton The story
of Puss in Boots is ingeniously combined with that
of Cinderella in this hilarious new show. Puss in
Boots transforms humble Colin Miller into Prince Charming.
Cinderella's Fairy Godmother helps her to become Princess
Priscilla, despite the meddlings of her stepsisters. Prince
Charming and Princess Priscilla marry, thus providing happy
endings for both their stories. This hugely likeable show,
which can be performed by a small cast without songs, is
suitable for any scale of production. The
Real Thing.
Play. Tom Stoppard Tom
Stoppard's brilliant, award-winning play of surprise and
deftly witty comparison was premiered at London's Strand
Theatre in 1982 starring Roger Rees and Felicity Kendal.
Henry is a successful playwright married to Charlotte who
has the lead role in his latest play about adultery. Her
co-star, Max, is married to another actress, Annie, and
Annie and Henry are madly in love but is it any more real
than the subjects of Henry's play Rebecca.
Play. Daphne du Maurier. Adapted by Clifford
Williams Max de Winter
brings his shy young bride to Manderley, his great house in
Cornwall. Everywhere, she senses the overpowering presence
of Rebecca, Max's drowned wife. Mrs Danvers, the grim
housekeeper, will not allow her to forget her shortcomings.
She doubts Max's love until Rebecca's body is found. Max
confesses that he murdered Rebecca, hating her depravity.
The husband and wife now face the exciting light to save Max
from the gallows. Period 1940 The
Recruiting Officer
George Farquhar
A Restoration
Comedy with a heart and soul. Captain Plume arrives in
Shrewsbury to recruit new soldiers. He falls for Sylvia -
against her father's wishes. Rather than be sent away,
Sylvia disguises herself as a man and so learns more about
Plume than he would really like ... First staged in
1706. The
Red Devil Battery Sign.
Play. Tennessee Williams One of
Williams' later plays, this is his indictment of the
military-industrial complex and all the dehumanising trends
it represents, from mindless cocktail party chatter to
bribery of officials, to assassination plots directed
against those who will not play the game, to attempted coups
by right-wing zealots.
Red
in the Morning.
Thriller. Glyn Jones A truly
Grand Guignol play, with rapacious servants, venomous
Dobermans, meat-hooks and mutilations. Two men abduct a boy
for ransom, and his grandmother, in order to keep hidden
certain family skeletons, readily pays. But then the bloody
machinations begin, and before the grisly ending there are
multiple disclosures, including the discovery of a Nazi
death camp commandant. Redevelopment.
Play. Václav Havel. English version by James
Saunders. From a literal translation by Marie Winn This English
version of Václav Havel's play received its British
premiere at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond. 'On a
realistic level, the play is about a universal architectural
dilemma ... But it also works as a political metaphor about
the whimsical arbitrariness of autocracy ... This is vintage
Havel: creating a work that is both specific and universal,
tragic and comic.' Michael Billington,
Guardian
Redwood
Curtain.
Play. Lanford Wilson, Geri, a
17-year-old Vietnamese-American has taken time out from a
rigorous touring schedule as a piano prodigy to stay on her
Aunt Geneva's Redwood plantation in Northern California.
She's been coming here for years, but recently she's become
obsessed with approaching the homeless Vietnam veterans who
retreated to the forests because they couldn't cope with
society after returning from the war. One such veteran she
interviews in the forest, Lyman, she detains against his
will and tells him lies about what she does know to be true
about her nameless natural father in hopes that maybe Lyman
knew, or even is, him. Lyman acts guilty and tries to flee,
but Geri, who says she's been studying the mysticism of the
East, casts a spell over him that she says will bring him
back to her. Geneva is horrified at Geri's actions, and
while she warns her of the dangers of approaching these
homeless men, she also sympathises with Geri's predicament:
namely, as an Asian woman, Geri feels a deep need to know
her ancestral history (and in particular the history of her
father) in order to structure her life. Tired of the
classical music circuit and recording contracts, Geri wants
to establish a new life for herself based on knowing about
her biological parents; her adoptive father, who encouraged
her in music from an early age, has since died of alcoholism
while her adoptive mother has taken to world travel and has
no time for Geri. Geneva gives Geri some details about her
natural father that makes it seem like the man Geri met in
the forest is indeed him. She persuades her aunt to come
with her and they finally meet with Lyman where the shocking
and moving truth of Geri's heritage comes to light.
The
Rehearsal, or Love
Punished.
Play. Jean Anouilh. Translated by Jeremy Sams A hedonistic
Count and his friends rehearse Marivaux's The Double
Inconstancy in the rural splendour of a provincial
castle. Most of the 'actors' keep to the amorous rules and
restrict their dalliances to their own class. Yet when the
Count himself threatens to step beyond theatrical boundaries
by falling in love with a young governess, stage romance
suddenly becomes the drama of life. This sparkling
translation was presented in the West End to critical
acclaim.
Relative
Strangers.
Play. Trevor Cowper A business
partner recommends to George, a successful and overworked
architect, a therapeutic affair to take his mind off all his
pressures. Along comes Gina, beautiful, clever and, on the
face of it, aggressively feminist, to fill this
prescription. But this play is no average knockabout farce:
the complications that ensue raise thought-provoking
questions on the easy assumptions we tend to make about
modern manners. Relative
Values.
Light comedy. Noel Coward Moxie is maid
to Felicity, Countess of Marshwood. When Felicity's son
Nigel announces his engagement to Miranda Frayle, the film
star, Moxie is distressed as Miranda is really her sister,
who ignored her family after becoming famous. Miranda starts
describing the home from which she ran away, saying her
sister drank and she had to care for her mother. Outraged,
Moxie blurts out the truth - and the engagement becomes
rather strained. Relatively
Speaking.
Comedy. Alan Ayckbourn Greg and
Ginny are living together, but Greg is becoming somewhat
suspicious that he is not the only man in her life. He
wonders about Ginny's plan 'to visit her parents' and
decides to follow her. Ginny is really going to see a
considerably older lover, but only in order to break with
him. Greg mistakes the ex-lover and his wife for Ginny's
parents. Ginny's arrival further compounds an already wildly
hilarious situation. The
Reluctant Debutante.
Comedy. William Douglas Home Jane is
totally uninterested in her mother's valiant efforts to give
her a successful 'season', and much prefers the company of
horses to that of the chinless drips who are assigned to her
as escorts. When she does fall in love with a man, it is
with one who seems to her parents to be most unsuitable.
However, he turns out to be much more acceptable than they
had thought - he even has a title - so everybody is
happy. RELUCTANT
HEROES Farce 8M 3F 2
Interior sets
A deferred
public schoolboy, a deferred married man from Lancashire and
a cockney lad all report to the army for National Service.
This lively comedy deals with this ill-assorted bunch of
conscripts who get themselves in and out of all sorts of
adventures. Great barrack-room humour in a hilarious
caricature of military life. THE
RELUCTANT ROGUE Comedy 2M 5F
1 boy Interior set
A very funny
and fast-moving play centring on an amorous young college
professor who specializes in seducing the prettier of his
female students until he finds himself trapped in a tangled
web of false promises. Reed Dolan would seem to be living in
the best of all possible worlds. He is young, attractive and
a professor of drama at a small college teeming with eager
students anxious for good grades. Reed's speciality is
inviting his better looking students to his apartment to
discuss their term papers, after which, if all goes well,
the next step is a weekend at his hideaway on nearby Lake
Hocapocapoo. The problem is that his amorous exploits are
too successful, as much to his consternation, not one but
three lovesick students descend on him in succession one
afternoon. Remember
This
Play Stephen Poliakoff
Stephen
Poliakoff's provocative new play for the Royal National
Theatre is the story of the intense rivalry between the
generations in a world which seems to record everything and
remember nothing as it hurtles into the next century. Rick,
a middle-aged man at a crossroads in his life, stumbles on a
disturbing technological mystery which threatens to replace
his reality with an imagined, recorded version of his life
on videotape. Remembrance.
Play. Graham Reid Bert and
Theresa, both mourning sons, meet in the cemetery and fall
in love. Their blossoming relationship is complicated by the
fact that he is a Protestant and she a Catholic ... and this
is Belfast. Bert's son, who believes his father would rather
have lost him than his adored brother, and Theresa's
daughters, one of whom is married to an imprisoned IRA
gunman, oppose the romance from the start, but Bert's
daughter-in-law, herself trapped in an unhappy marriage,
supports the elderly lovers. Rents.
A play by Michael Wilcox Through an
episodic style which mirrors the fragmentary nature of the
characters' lives, the play describes the fleeting sexual
encounters of the homosexual rent boys in 1970s' Edinburgh.
Phil, a droll drama student, shares a flat with Robert, an
18-year-old shop assistant who has had many years on the
game. Both become involved with Richard, a mature lecturer
from Newcastle desperately in need of sexual
humiliation.
The
Resistible Rise of Arturo
Ui.
Play. Bertolt Brecht M28 F2.
Extras. Numerous simple interior and exterior
settings.
A grimly
humorous 'parable play' in blank verse, in which Hitler's
rise to power is illustrated in the story of a small-time
gangster's take-over of the green grocery trade in Chicago.
A brief six line Epilogue points out how nearly Hitler ruled
the world.
The
Restless Evil.
Play. Charlotte Hastings After a
prison break, convict Jubilee, with two companions, takes
over a small roadside cafe. The owners are temporarily
absent; however, a special party of their friends is
expected to lunch. After serving the visitors lunch, the
gang tells them they are prisoners. The mutual reactions of
'respectable' and 'villains', the mounting tension of the
situation, and instinctive groping towards some sort of
understanding, form the basis of the events that follow. The
Restoration of Arnold
Middleton.
Play. David Storey Arnold
Middleton and his wife Joan share their cramped quarters
with Joan's mother Edie. Arnold genuinely likes his
mother-in-law, but, one night, takes unforgivable advantage
of her momentary drunkenness. There is, now, no more hiding
from self-knowledge. At the end, he turns to his wife for
help. Joan is very willing and, to his own surprise, Arnie
finds that his long soul-sickness is finished. Retreat.
Play. James Saunders Harold Hopper
has retreated to a cottage in Wales following a car accident
in which his wife died and his daughter was disabled. But
his 'retreat' is disturbed by the arrival of Hannah,
daughter of his closest friends who have died in a plane
crash. Hannah forces him to confront the facts, unleashing
the repressed bitterness within him. At the end the doorbell
rings again - did Hannah truly arrive or has Harold conjured
her to catharise his guilt?
Retreat
from Moscow.
Play. Don Taylor Cocooned in
their suburban home are Tom, idealistic socialist and
unemployed classics lecturer, and Phillipa, his
disillusioned daughter. Into their lives unexpectedly comes
Boris, a bellowing bear-like Muscovite who only wants to
enjoy the fruits of the capitalist good life. But beneath
Boris's laughing exuberance lies a bitter, dreadful secret
past which, when revealed, shakes the beliefs Tom holds
firm. The play was presented at the New End Theatre,
Hampstead, in 1993 in a production directed by the author.
The
Return of A. J. Raffles.
Edwardian comedy. Graham Greene In this
light-hearted pastiche EW.Hornung's famous 'amateur
cracksman' is persuaded by Lord Alfred Douglas to break into
and rob the house of the latter's hated father, the Marquess
of Queensberry, accompanied by the ever-faithful Bunny.
Douglas intends to send part of the proceeds to Oscar Wilde,
now living in poverty. They then become involved in a plot
to secure certain compromising letters written by no less a
personage than King Edward VII!
THE
RETURN OF HERBERT BRACEWELL OR (WHY AM I ALWAYS ALONE WHEN
I'M WITH YOU?) 1 man, 1
woman. Interior.
It's 1909 and
Herbert Bracewell has retired to the attic of his New York
home with plans to stage a comeback in a one-man review of
his long, if undistinguished career. He assembles five
antique match-lit footlights to mark a playing area and
proceeds to ad-lib ideas for his show,straining to pull down
dusty manuscripts from atop overflowing shelves of vintage
souvenirs, using a stunt dummy to play off of, and
conferring often with his pet, a stuffed crow. Herbert's
wife, Florence, thirty years his junior and once a great
success as an actress, comes to call her husband to bed and
is caught up in his production plans, first with
good-humored derision, then with the suggestion that she
join him in the comeback attempt. Through a series of barbs,
playful reminiscences, and impromptu "performances," we
learn of the strains this relationship has endured
Florence's infidelity and success and that Herbert is
endearingly closer to losing his mind than we thought. But
we also sense that, through it all, husband and wife have
been sustained by the magic of theatre, their first
love. REVENGE Thriller 1M
1F Interior set
Bill
Crayshaw, MP, returns from an overseas business trip to his
smart Westminster flat to learn of the death of his party
agent in a car crash. Mary Stanwyck arrives, a journalist
intent on learning his reaction to the news, but her line of
questioning quickly turns to items which could apparently
ruin Bill's political, business and personal life. But no
one is ever what they appear to be, and the initial game of
cat-and-mouse between reporterand politician quickly urns
into deadly battle as the suspense increases through a
series of twists and turns reaching a climax that keeps
audiences guessing until after the final curtain. The
Revengers' Comedies.
Play in two parts by Alan Ayckbourn Hapless Henry
Bell, depressed at being ousted from his firm, is distracted
from committing suicide by another would-be suicide. He
rescues her, and after hearing her tale of abandonment by
her married lover, agrees that revenge is sweeter than
suicide. Karen persuades Henry that they should swap
revenges - she will see to the man who took Henry's job,
while he will take care of her ex-lover's wife, Imogen. The
Revenger's Tragedy
- Cyril Tourneur (attrib) This Jacobean
tale (1606) of personal vengeance in a morally bankrupt
world follows Vindice in his quest to revenge the murder of
his beloved Gloriana by the lustful Duke. He gains access to
the court in disguise to cause havoc and commit serial
murder among the corrupt family until they are overthrown by
the virtuous Antonio, who himself sentences Vindice to death
for his crimes.
M8 (20s, 40s-60s). F3 (20s, 30, 50s). Extras. Various simple
interior and exterior settings.
ISBN 0 573 11369 6
M7 (young, 35, 40, elderly) F4 (young, 30s, Kanaka). Extras.
An hotel living-room.
ISBN 0 573 01368 3
M3
(young) F7 (young, middle-age, elderly). Two
exteriors.
ISBN 0 573 01371 3
Lucy Gannon
ISBN: 0 85676 141 9
3m 2f, 1m/f. One-act drama. Simple set.
ISBN 1 85459 249 1
M2 (28, 52) Fl (26). A basement flatlet.
ISBN 0 573 01372 1
M2 (30s, 50s) F2 (38, 60). Various simple interior and
exterior settings.
M6 F3, or M7 F4. Various interior and exterior
settings.
ISBN 0 573 06497 0
M4 (20s, 40s) F3 (l7, 30s). Various interior
settings.
ISBN 0 573 01637 2
M8 (young, 30s, middle-age) F3 (young, middle-age). Extras.
A lounge-hall.
ISBN 0 573 01373 X
ISBN 1 85459 340 4
M14 F4, doubling possible. Extras. Various interior
settings.
M4 (23, 40s) F3 (30s, 70s). Extras. A conservatory and part
of the hall.
ISBN 0 573 69094 9
M7 F3, with doubling. A spacious hall in a medieval
castle.
1 man, 2 women; unit.
M5 F3. An elegant room, an attic room.
M2 (middle-age) F4 (teenage, 20s). A living-room.
ISBN 0 573 11353 X
M5 (30-middle-age, 60) F5 (18, 35-50s). A library
living-room.
ISBN 0 573 01375 6
M2 (young, middle-age) F2 (young, middle-age). A bed
sitting-room, a garden patio.
ISBN 0 573 11355 6
M3 (20s, middle-age) F5 (young, middle-age). A
sitting-room.
ISBN 0 573 11348 3
Colin Morris
ISBN: 0 85676 099 4
John Patrick
ISBN: 0 8222 0942 X
The foreign country to which [Poliakoff's]
imagination travels is the past, a secret hinterland common
to us all' Evening Standard
M2 (30s-40s, 68) F4 (30s-40s, 63). A cemetery, two
living-rooms, a garden.
ISBN 0 573 69321 8
M10 (can be played by M5). Various simple interior and
exterior settings.
Translations:
Ralph
Manheim
George Tabori
Ranjit Bolt
M3 (24, 38) F7 (20s West Indian, 40s, 50s, 60, 70s). A
café.
ISBN 0 573 11370 X
M2 (30s, 40) F4 (young, 20s, 30s, 50s). A
living-room.
ISBN 0 573 01376 4
M I (middle-age) Fl (young). A living-room.
M2 (50s) F2 (16, 22). A living-room.
M8 (young, 30s, middle-age, elderly) F2 (young, 30). An
apartment in Albany, a bedroom.
Comedy Andrew Johns
ISBN: 0-82222-0946-2
Robin Hawdon
ISBN: 0 85676 143 5
M11 F10, MI F1 voices only, some doubling possible. Various
interior and exterior settings. for each part
ISBN 0 573 01881 2
13m 3f, extras. Classic tragedy. Multipurpose set.
ISBN 1 85459 330 7