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Play Aleksandr Volodin. Translated and adapted by Ariadne Nicolaef. 4 men, 3 women. Unit Set There is no politics in this comedy. The main characters are no longer youthful. They fell in love on the eve of the war; the war separated them. After the war they lost sight of one another, though not their memories or their longings for each other. When they meet again seventeen years later they are past the age of romance All the characters in Five Evenings are sweet people even when they are youthfully foolish or momentarily misguided. All are learning and teaching. Thus they constantly seem to express themselves in aphorisms and proverbs. At the final curtain when the lovers have dispelled their misunderstanding, Tamara looks forward to a good life and simply says, "Oh, if only we don't have a war!" Play. Peter Shaffer Walter, a sensitive young German, has been engaged as tutor to Pamela
Harrington. He has fled to England from a Nazi father hoping to find
a new home and nationality. His stay in the Harrington family begins
propitiously, but the Harringtons are a desperately unhappy family.
As Clive says, 'This isn't a family. It's a tribe of wild cannibals'.
It takes a near tragedy to shock them into an awareness of their
cruelty to each other. Period 1950s Play. Len Jenkin. 3 men, 2 women. Unit Set. The story deals with the parallel lives of New York tenement dwellers,
who live next door to each other but whose paths do not cross until
one fateful moment, which spells disaster for them all. One apartment
is occupied by Mark, a young writer who churns out pornography while
planning the "big novel" he will someday write, and his live-in girlfriend,
Lee, an anthropology grad who works as a waitress. Their next door
neighbor is Herman, a mentally deficient messenger who speaks in
a language all his own and amuses himself by calling 800 numbers
to make hotel reservations he has no intention of keeping. When Lee
is offered a chance to join an anthropological expedition to Sri
Lanka, Mark is faced with a crisis - the loss of both her companionship
and her income. With the connivance. of his ex-con buddy, Eddie,
a street-smart would-be mercenary, Mark decides to prop up his finances
by robbing Herman's apartment, in the misguided belief that the poor
eccentric has been hoarding money. But, instead, what they find is
the bizarre detritus of a stunted life - a life which is abruptly
ended when Herman, coming upon them, is startled into a fatal epileptic
fit. Fearfitl and guilt-ridden, Mark and Eddie try to cover their
tracks - but as the play ends it is also dear that no matter how
far or fast they flee they will never escape the spectre of the lonely
misfit whose pathetic world they have so thoughtlessly and fatally
shattered. Five Women Wearing the Same Dress Comedy. Alan Ball : 1 man, 5 women; interior. During an ostentatious wedding reception at a Knoxville, Tennessee,
estate, five reluctant, identically clad bridesmaids hide out in
an upstairs bedroom, each with her own reason to avoid the proceedings
below. They are Frances, a painfully sweet but sheltered fundamentalist;
Mindy, the cheerful, wise-cracking lesbian sister of the groom; Georgeanne,
whose heartbreak over her own failed marriage triggers outrageous
behaviour; Meredith, the bride's younger sister whose precocious
rebelliousness masks a dark secret; and Trisha, a jaded beauty whose
die-hard cynicism about men is called into question when she meets
Tripp, a charming bad-boy usher to whom there is more than meets
the eye. As the afternoon wears on, these five very different women
joyously discover a common bond in this wickedly funny, irreverent
and touching celebration of the womens' spirit. Derek Royle : Farce 4M 6F Interior set An uproariously funny farce involving the frantic efforts of a young couple to keep their marriage secret so that she can take a much needed job. The pace is frenetic, deriving from a well built up confusion of identities. Play. Terence Rattigan : M7 F4. An hotel lounge. Filmed as The Way To The Stars and set in the 1940s, Rattigan's
famous play concerns Patricia's love for a film actor, despite her
marriage to Flight-Lieutenant Teddy Graham. Going to the hotel to
break with Teddy, followed by Peter, Pat encounters Doris, married
to a Polish Count, who is one of two pilots not to return from a
bombing raid. Hearing the Count's last letter, Pat realises how much
Teddy needs her, and gives Peter his dismissal. Comedy. Peter Parnell, 5 men, 3 women; exterior. Felix, a blocked novelist, and his noticeably younger lover, Colin,
are estranged but still in love. Felix, you see, is so obsessed by
his admiration for the nineteenth century master of French letters,
Gustave Flaubert, that he fails to take any interest in either Colin's
burgeoning choreography career or their relationship. Their friends
Ursula (a nutty summer stock actress, writer and part time spiritualist)
and her husband Howard arrive for an outing, but while practising
her spiritual channelling Ursula accidentally conjures up Flaubert
himself along with his faithful mistress of many years, Louise. They
tell their startled twentieth century hosts that they, too, have
been fighting on and off about the way Flaubert neglects Louise and
instead locks himself away to write for months at a time. Colin immediately
sympathises with Louise and he confides in her that he's been hoping
to start an affair with a very attractive and flirtatious gardener
named Jace. Eventually, because Felix and Flaubert have been spending
all their time with each other discussing art and writing, tempers
explode and Louise takes a shot at Flaubert, accidentally wounding
Felix. Hurt feelings all around, Ursula is called back to the country
house and returns Flaubert and Louise to their century. Having come
through the worst, and his writer's block gone, Felix makes up with
Colin and the two begin their lives anew. Farce. Georges Feydeau, translated
by John Mortimer Raymonde suspects her husband, Victor, of infidelity and she turns
to her best friend, Lucienne, to help her gain proof. They concoct
a ploy-based on a perfumed letter-to trap him at the Hotel Coq der.
In true Feydeau fashion the plan misfires; the plot is complicated
by confused identities, revolving beds, a great many doors and the
fact that the foolish hotel porter, Poche, is the exact double of
Victor. Period early 1900s. Farce:. Georges Feydeau. Adapted by Frank Galati. An up-to-date and explosively funny version of Feydeau's classic farce, which retains the antic, pell-mell humour of the original while making the people and the action of the play pertinent to our own times. 10 men, 5 women. 2 Interiors. Although the adapter has moved the action of the play into the twentieth
century (which serves to heighten the sexual allusions which make
the play so hilarious) the action follows the pattern of the famous
original: a complex series of mistaken identities, clandestine assignations
and misplaced but explosive jealousies - all happening at breakneck
speed. In this case things begin to go awry when Victor Deboshe,
a middle-class insurance salesman, becomes impotent; leading his
wife, Yvonne, to assume that he has taken a mistress. To test his
fidelity she has her friend Lucille write an anonymous letter to
Victor, claiming to be infatuated with him and proposing a rendezvous
at the notorious' Hotel Pussy a Go-Go. Thinking a mistake has been
made, Victor persuades his friend Maurice (a famous womaniser) to
keep the appointment for him, after which the complications begin
to multiply uproariously. Eventually, as must be, things are somehow
untangled and set right, but not before the action has expanded to
include a violently jealous husband (a hot-blooded Spaniard), a suicidal
leap from a window, a nephew with an unfortunate (but hilarious)
speech defect, a furious Indian fakir and a lascivious butler, all
tumbled together into a riotous medley of slamming doors, revolving
beds and wildly amiss gun shots - all of which will leave audiences
happily breathless from laughter. Play. Philip Osment Rose, Charles and William are reluctant partners in a remote farm. Charles wants his siblings to buy him out so he can settle down with Shirley, a local girl of dubious morals. Rose and William refuse. Shirley, pregnant, emigrates. Thirty years later the same trio are still marooned on the farm where time has done nothing to repair their jealousies and resentments. Shirley returns, forcing the family feuds to the surface and precipitating disaster. Period 1950s-1980s. Drama. William Hanley. 3 men, 3 women. Interior. As described by the Washington, D.C. Evening Star, "Here was the
family of an aging steelworker, living in a New York tenement about
to be torn down, getting ready to mark the departure of his brother
and the arrival of a new year ... The steelworker, a happy-go-lucky
type all his life, was not quick to anger. He was troubled by his
brother's departure after all these years; the family was falling
apart. He questioned himself, too, and his part in the death of a
young steelworker. Were old memories good enough? He had lost one
son in a war, another had lost both hands in battle and the shock
had curtailed his mind. Was he good enough any more for the job he
loved? The brother was leaving to die, but unwilling to leave without
taking something with him that was his. So after a few drinks he
revealed, to the youngest daughter (Kim Darby) that he was really
her father and that it had happened when he and her mother thought
her husband dead in a shipwreck ...The girl, shocked by the revelation,
runs out into the night and it is her allnight absence which author
Hanley employs to develop his mosaic of the accommodations that people
make in order to survive as a unit." Mikhail Bulgakov, Adapted by Ron Hutchinson Set in 1920 during the Russian civil war, Bulgakov's satire creates
a grotesque, tragicomic world in which men and women are entirely
at the mercy of chance. This version presented at the National has
been freely created by Ron Hutchinson, who relishes the playwright's
blackly comic vision. The National's production was directed by Howard
Davies with Alan Howard as the increasingly mad General and Kenneth
Cranham as his charismatic Major. Julian Gamer : 4m 3f. Drama. Two interior sets. A fourteen-year-old Jewish girl flees the pogrom enveloping her
rural home town in Poland in 1939. She seeks refuge in Cracow, and
is taken in by a caretaker who risks his life by keeping her concealed
for four years. Play. John Bowen The story of Florence Nightingale's life is told in the form of
a rehearsal of a play to be performed at a later date. It passes
from her youth, through the famous period of the Lady with the Lamp,
to the close when she is presented with the Order of Merit. Under
the director the cast arrive in rehearsal clothes and throughout
they make use of what costumes, props and furniture are available. Play Clifford Odets. 7 men, 4 women, 4 animals which may be played by men or women. Interior/Exteriors. This is the story of mankind living out its destiny under the benevolent
eye of God. There were giants on the earth in those days of the Deluge.
In spirit Noah was the greatest. He is not to put on a pedestal but
is characterised as the worried head of a family of ordinary individuals
- a peevish, though loving, hero who feels himself close to God.
Noah persuades his sceptical family that God has given all of them
a mission. They bicker, yet do the job obediently, and God helps
them solve the most prodigious problems. They scamper into the ark
when the rains fall - all this, told with sympathetic humour in the
form of a folk fable should be enough to delight and move any theatregoer.
In the second act the voyager concludes triumphantly with the grounding
of the ark, the flowering of the peach and the departure of the family
in their several ways to replenish and reseed the earth. It is a
triumphant conclusion, but only after a long series of quarrels and
sorrows that symbolise the eternal questioning of God's children. Comedy. Derek Benfield Why should Ron Corley MP, the Minister for the Environment, be searching
the seaside bungalow of his ex-mistress Donna? And why does his virtuous
wife, Louise, turn up at the same place on the same day? And what
was a romantic doctor with a bunch of flowers doing in Sussex when
his practice is in London? Add to these questions the presence of
a frustrated policewoman and a devious pizza delivery boy ... Drama. Pearl Cleage. 2 men, 4 women. Unit set Facing problems ranging from the inevitability of long, cold winters,
to the possibility of domestic violence, to the continuing spectre
of racial conflict, the women of Flyin' West include Miss
Leah, the old woman whose memories of slavery and its aftermath comprise
a living oral history; Sophie Washington, whose determination to
protect her land and those she loves puts to rest forever the requirement
that western archetypes be white and male; Fannie Mae Dove, the gentle
sister, trying to civilise the frontier with fine china and roses,
who finds herself falling in love with their soft-spoken neighbour,
Will Parish; and Minnie Dove Charles, the headstrong baby sister
whose mulatto husband, Frank, introduces a danger into the household
that tests their sisterhood in unexpected ways. Comedy. Derek Benfield When Chief Constable Henry Potterton and his wife Sarah arrive at
the country house of their late lamented brother Bernard, they are
astonished to find several scantily-clad ladies wandering about,
not knowing that Bernard's housekeeper has turned the place into
a 'house of sin'. There are many hilarious comings and goings and
when Bernard turns up, proving to be Henry's identical twin, the
household is thrown into further confusion and chaos. Comedy. Kenyon Nicholson and Charles K Robinson. 7 men, 6 women. Interior. For 40 years the Gerardos have been booked as the "Daring Family
of Aerial Artists." Mama still manages her troupe. On a visit in
the West, she is asked to return because Donna has become suddenly
unsociable with the rest of the troupe. The cause is anaemic William,
a student, who has opened a new world to Donna. Trips to highbrow
lectures make Donna dissatisfied with her companions, and her threat
to leave if they interfere with her education stuns even Mama. To
Mama's horror, William reveals his love for Donna, and pleads to
go with the troupe. The boys decide to initiate William on the trapeze
hoping to destroy his ambitions. William is knocked unconscious,
but reviving, he climbs on the trapeze again, determined to conquer
his weakness. Donna believes he has lost his "wonderful mind" as
a result of the fall, and declares she will nurse him back to sanity,
and then they can marry and go away to college. William is obdurate
and Mama, to keep Donna near her, falls in line with him, making
him a clown, much to his Aunt Thucy's horror, Donna's dismay and
William's bewilderment. |