Comedy Mark Stein : 2 men, 3 women, 1 boy. Exterior Leo Beagle has recently completed a 638 page manifesto on harmony
for humanity which he hopes will be the impetus for the next major
social movement for the world. Arriving home to his family which
includes his depressed mother, philandering father, confused sister,
introverted nephew and a neighbor who has always been in love with
him. Leo tries to test his principles on this group. The only problem
is ... he can't get them to read the manifesto. Leo's visit does,
however, bring change to the family. Although Leo's mother accuses
him of being "addicted to hope,"
the play's moving ending suggests that the desire to save the world
and the need to dream is born with each new generation. Comedy. Nagle Jackson. 5 men, 2 women. 2 Interiors (One simplified). On tour in rural Dunsk (recently annexed by the hated socialist
state of Strevia) a theatrical troupe is obliged to present corny
melodramas and creaky verse plays as modern drama has been banned
by their new masters. Led by a hammy egomaniac (who has amorous designs
on the company's ingenue) and his Amazonian wife (who is herself
in panting pursuit of the group's handsome juvenile), the actors
seem more concerned with romantic assignations than politics until
they discover that their new stage manager is a Strevian spy. To
make matters worse, it also develops that one of the lines in the
play of the evening is a secret cue for subversive activity and that
the speaker (a member of the underground) will be summarily disposed
of by a gunman in the audience. All this reaches its hilarious climax
in a wildly funny play-within-a-play in which the wrong man is shot,
the right man is spared, and the Players of Dunsk decide to head
for the border - and freedom in the West. Play.
Julian Mitchell, adapted from Uncle
Vanya by Anton Chekhov Chekhov's eloquent study of languid Russian landowners has been transposed by Julian Mitchell to Victorian north Wales in this stunning adaptation, which dispenses with many of the alienating Russian principles-confusing patronymics-and theatrical clichés -birch forests and samovars -that characterise most modern British productions. Anthony Hopkins played Ieuan Davies in the acclaimed original production for Theatr Clwyd in 1994. Drama. Reynolds Price. 2 men, 3 women. Unit set In August of 1937, in a small town in eastern North Carolina, we
meet the Avery family. Roma Avery is the widowed matriarch who still
maintains a hold on hèr recently married son, Neal. He and
his wife, Taw, a former school teacher, rent a room from their friend,
Genevieve Slappy, while Porter Farwell, Neal's boyhood friend, now
lives in Romas house. Both Neal and Porter work at the family store,
Avery's Clothing. After the first year of marriage, which has seen
them drift apart, Taw gives Neal an ultimatum. He must recommit with
heart and soul to his marriage vows by ending the long nights he
spends out drinking with Porter. He has until supper to abide by
her wishes or she will leave him. Neal begins to see life as a grown
up, complete with the disappointments he's tried to avoid, and ultimately
knows that Taw is the best thing to happen to him. He returns, quietly
renewing his love. Play Wallace Shawn. 6 men, 6 women. Unit Set The action begins in the London flat of Lenora (Lemon), a rather
frail, introspective young woman who tells us, with a chilling calm,
why she rather admires the Nazis for their "refreshing" lack of hypocrisy,
and who then, in a series of flashbacks, explains how she came to
hold these views. We meet her abrasive American-born father, to whom
profit and business success are foremost, and her retiring mother
who wishes that love and kindness were more prevalent, but is easily
reconciled to their absence. But, most importantly, we meet a family
friend, Danielle (known as Aunt Dan), an Oxford don obsessed with
defending Henry Kissinger's policies in Vietnam. Beguiling Lemon
with tales of her wild days as an Oxford student, and of the amoral
escapades of her diverse and often dissolute friends (depicted in
brief, disquieting vignettes), Aunt Dan becomes the central force
in Lemon's life, eventually corrupting Lemon's moral views to the
point where even Aunt Dan's death elicits no compassion. Instead
Lemon, in a final, chilling monologue, methodically makes the case
that bullies are our natural masters and that reasonable man is,
by nature, an armed killer who destroys others not only because it
is necessary for survival, but because it gives him pleasure. Robert
Thomas, after the novel by, and in collaboration with, Jean-Paul
Ferriere, adapted by Tudor Gates The beautiful, striking but somewhat mysterious Aurelia returns
to England without her husband and begins to spin a web of deceit
and crime around Isabel, her father's former love, which, if successfully
completed, should net her a great deal of money. Unfortunately, murder,
robbery and blackmail all start to recoil on her own head. The end
of the story is one of disaster. Play Lillian Hellman. 5 men, 7 women. Interior The premise of the play is contemplating the meaning of middle age
to an assorted group of people gathered together in a summer home.
All of them are, in one way or another, frustrated and unhappy. Most
of them are under the illusion that some day the things from which
they suffer will be removed and they will be once more at peace.
But when they come to see themselves, they realise that man is the
sum of his past life, that they are incapable of any real revolt
against their past and that what they have made of themselves in
earlier years is what they are when age approaches. And yet they
are not tragic figures. All of them are troubled average people,
human, commonplace: but they are studied with great understanding
and a touch of intelligently unsentimental compassion. Comedy. Peter Coke This sequel to Breath of Spring and Midsummer Mink sees
Dame Beatrice - and her lodgers Nan, Hattie and the Brigadier-embarking
on a series of 'operations' to acquire funds to purchase a flat.
Their complicated but well-planned manoeuvres succeed so well that
by the end of this gentle comedy they are well on their way to obtaining
a second flat, proving, as Bea says, that in their case age certainly
isn't limiting! |