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Translations.
Play. Brian Friel In Baile Beag, an Irish-speaking community in County Donegal, a detachment of the Royal Engineers engaged on behalf of the British Army and Government are making the first Ordnance Survey. Lieutenant Yolland falls in love with Maire, a peasant girl, and with Ireland, but when he is murdered Maire goes mad. The British soldiers pillage the countryside in revenge. Period 1833 Traps.
Play. Caryl Churchill First staged at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs in 1977. Caryl Churchill writes: 'When we were casting Traps, we found ourselves repeating the same two things as some kind of introduction to the play. First, that it is like a painting by Escher, where the objects can exist on paper, but would be impossible in life ... Second, that the characters can be thought of as living many of their possibilities at once. There is no flashback, no fantasy, everything that happens is as real and solid as everything else within the play.' Travels
with my Aunt. Play.
Adapted by Giles Havergal from the novel by Graham
Greene This stage adaptation of Graham Greene's novel of retired bank worker Henry Pulling and his eccentric Aunt Augusta was first presented at the Citizen's Theatre, Glasgow, in 1989, with a cast of four actors playing all 24 characters. It can be staged with a large or small cast and there are many schemes for doubling to suit the circumstances of the production and the wishes of the director. Travesties.
Play. Tom Stoppard James Joyce, running a Swiss theatrical company, invites Henry Carr to play in Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. Carr agrees and scores a success, but later there is a dispute over Carr's claim for reimbursement of the cost of articles of clothing bought for his role. The author uses this factual framework on which to build an extravaganza of political history, literary pastiche, and Wildean parody, even song and dance, introducing Dadaist Tristan Tzara, and Lenin and his wife. Period 1918 Treasure
Island. Play. Bernard
Miles, Peter Coe and Josephine Wilson from the book by R.L.
Stevenson The story begins in the Admiral Benbow
public house, moving thence to Bristol, the good ship
Hispaniola, and to the famous island. It concerns a map of
buried treasure, the fine old Squire Trelawney and a
sea-cook with one leg called Long John Silver among other
characters and pirates. This version avoids elaborate
staging so it can be performed with a minimum of
equipment. Treats.
Play. Christopher Hampton This play consists of the permutations and combinations of Ann and her two lovers. Dave, her previous companion, a journalist, has been away, and on returning finds that he has been replaced by Patrick, amiable but dull. Though Ann rules the roost -and also her two lovers - she herself is weak enough to be unable to do without one of them, and in the end Dave is reinstated and Patrick dismissed. But how long this will last is anybody's guess. Trelawny
of the 'Wells'.
Comedy. Arthur W. Pinero Actress Rose Trelawny falls in love with
the grandson of a snobbish knight. Unfortunately her visit
to her lover's home is a humiliating failure and she finds
she can no longer act. But the elderly tyrant relents,
unexpectedly developing an interest in the theatre; he even
finances a play and finally gives his blessing to Rose and
his grandson. Period 1860 Trespass. Ghost Story. Emlyn
Williams When Christine's husband Philip dies she engages a medium to make contact with Philip, a dance band leader. What follows is a night of fear and terror with Philip's music pervading the taut atmosphere, wherein everyone has one foot over the line and must not, under any circumstance, crossover. Secrets are told, spine-chilling events take place and the dawn brings sunshine, peace - and death. Trial
and Error. Comedy.
Kenneth Horne On their honeymoon Andrea's second
husband, Claud, finds out that she was tried and acquitted
for pushing her first husband, Dudley, off an ocean liner!
Just as Claud has been reassured who should turn up to
embarrass the newlyweds but Dudley, who demands an
exorbitant sum of money in order to divorce Andrea, so she
may remarry Claud. The two men come to blows and Dudley is
stunned with a cricket bat. Further complications ensure
before all is sorted out. Trivial
Pursuits. Play. Frank
Vickery A summer evening's barbecue is the
setting for a meeting of the Trealaw and District Operatic
Society. Next season's play is being announced but Nick, the
Society's business manager, has promised a different show
and the plum roles to four different people. As the evening
progresses each character's foibles and talents are revealed
and the complex relationships between players emerge as
moments of pure slapstick and farce alternate with ones full
of real drama and pathos. The
Trojan Women. Play.
Euripides, translated by Neil Curry The play dwells on and enlarges one brief moment at the end of the Trojan War - when all the Trojan men are dead and the women and children are waiting to be shipped into slavery concentrating attention on the fate of individuals. This classic depiction has survived solely as a veiled reference to distant fact of history; it remains a powerful dramatic expose of the brutality of war and the pompous nobodies who are responsible for them. The Trouble With Old Lovers. Play. Angela Huth M2 (50s) F3 (late 30s-50s). A country-house kitchen. Returning somewhat tipsy from a friend's
wedding, Alice announces she has met Edward and Laura whom
she has invited to dinner. Edward is Alice's old flame and
Laura and Tom had a brief premarital affair-four ex-lovers
meeting after twenty years, where's the harm? But they
arrive with Mary with whom Tom had a passionate affair. Will
Tom's and Alice's seemingly secure marriage survive the
seductive onslaught of Mary who is determined to get
Tom? Trumpets
and Drums. Play.
Bertolt Brecht. Translated by Alan Brown and Kyra Dietz,
music by Wagner-Regeny Brecht takes George Farquhar's Restoration comedy The Recruiting Officer and transfers it to the period of the American Revolutionary War. Captain Plume, the officer in question, arrives in Shrewsbury from London to enquire how recruitment to fight the rebels is progressing. He receives a discouraging report of military and romantic complications.
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