Composers and their stage works 



 

G.R. Point

Play. David Berry. 8 men, 1 woman. Unit Set

The "G.R." of the play's title stands for "Graves Registration" - the point where the bodies of Vietnam combat victims are brought for processing before burial. Joining the unit involved in tending to this gruesome duty is Micah Broadstreet, a New England aristocrat, and Ivy League graduate, recently drafted. Although it seems unlikely that Micah will be accepted in a unit comprised of two blacks, a Puerto Rican, a Greek-American and a hillbilly, he soon joins them in pot smoking and, more important, survives a hellish fire-fight in which he kills for the first time. But the more he fits into the life of the unit, the more his values erode. His increasingly explicit letters to his mother undoubtedly contribute to the heart attack which ends her life, and he confesses, with some shame, to having experienced sexual pleasure in the act of killing. In the end, through Micah and the others, the playwright captures the real horror of Vietnam - the insidious way in which it robbed human life of its dignity and dimension, and led decent young men to commit acts which, in another time and place, would have filled them with remorse and horror.
ISBNs 0-8222-0467-3

Galahad Jones

Comedy Boyce Loving. 7 men, 7 women. Interior.

Having glimpsed life at King Arthur's court through books, Tommy Jones concludes that the days of knighthood were superior to the present era of speed, greed, and mechanical gadgets. Tommy sets out to try to put into practice some of the ideas and customs of the Arthurian court. His family soon loses patience with him, so Tommy decides to practice on Lena, the maid. He dresses her in court dress and crowns her queen of the tournament - only to have his family walk in, to his great embarrassment. However, from Lena he learns of a "damsel in distress," another maid whose husband is cruel to her. Tommy, now dubbed "Galahad" Jones, writes out a formal challenge and carries it in person to the "low churl's" house. The man challenged, a burly truck-driver, all but chokes the life out of Tommy. Threatening messages pour in. Lena's life is threatened as well as that of the young state's attorney, engaged to Tommy's sister. Unwittingly, Tommy has uncovered the meeting-place of a gang of hijackers. This fact he reveals to the prosecutor under oath of secrecy. The gang is surrounded and captured, and Tommy is rewarded.

Gallows Humour

Comedy/Drama. Jack Richardson. 2 men, 1 woman (all roles doubled). 2 interiors.

Howard Taubman describes "In a sharp-edged prologue, Mr. Richardson declares his thesis ...(He) is suggesting earnestly in his cheerful fashion that the small routines strangle the spirit and that the adventure to the unknown should be embraced recklessly. No one would wish to quarrel with such brave, heady counsel. But note the symbols chosen to develop this argument. In the first part of Gallows Humour we encounter Walter, who has worked out to the tiniest detail how he will employ the two hours preceding his hanging. A benevolent penal system, intent on a new program of magnanimity, sends him a prostitute to beguile his last hours. He resists her, breaks down and confesses to her the sources of his troubled soul and at last lets her recall the joy of life to him. The second half of Gallows Humour takes place in the executioner's kitchen. Philip, the hangman, leads a contented existence until he discovers his wife, Martha, in an embrace with the warden. Instead of being upset, he feels liberated. He will leave, seeking whatever destiny each day may hold. But he cannot escape. Marriage holds him in chains. He must go on with his duties as executioner."
ISBN: 0-8222-0431-2

Games

Play. James Saunders
Any number of players. (Published with After Liverpool.) Playing time one to one and a half hours according to use made of the material

A note on Games by the author: 'The script is not the final version, but the raw material from which the actors, the director and I worked out a more or less finished production. Games is about freedom, responsibility and choice, treated not as theoretical concepts, but as aspects of an actual event which takes place during rehearsals and during performance.'
ISBN 0 573 02501 0

Games (in Czech Plays)

Ivan Klima. Trans B. Day : 6m 2f Comedy/drama. Single interior set.

In this witty, surreal play an initially genial house party turns unpleasant as old guilts break the surface. Written as a parable of Czech society under Communism, the play has a universal relevance, as everyday social interactions invariably involve pretence and game playing.
ISBN 185459074X

Gardenia

Play. John Guare. 4 men, l woman, 1 boy. Exterior & Interior.

The story begins on a deserted Nantucket beach, in 1875, where the young Joshua Hickman awaits the return of his wife, Lydie, who has been off island on a nursing assignment. She is furious that he has let her cherished gardenia plant wither and die in her absence; while he is disheartened that the novel on which he has labored for years has been rejected for publication. Their discord reflects on the failure of the utopian community they had sought to establish in the house left to Lydie by her whaling captain father, the only other remaining member being Amos Mason, a young man educated by Joshua and who now talks of leaving to enroll at Harvard. When another former communard, Dan Grady, returns unexpectedly the action quickens, as the old passion between Lydie and Dan is revived and the jealous Joshua kills his rival. In the second act Joshua is in jail but, at last, an accepted author - although, ironically, he is importuned by Amos (now a politically ambitious lawyer) not to publish his possibly damaging book In the end Joshua gives in, powerfully underscoring the sense of disillusionment and tragic destiny which infuses the play and its people and prefigures the climactic events of their later years.
ISBN: 0-8222-0432-0

Gaslight

Victorian thriller. Patrick Hamilton
M2 (45, 60s) F3 (19, 34, 50). A living-room.

This classic Victorian thriller was first produced in 1935. Jack Manningham is slowly, deliberately driving his wife, Bella, insane. He has almost succeeded when help arrives in the form of a former detective, Rough, who believes Manningham to be a thief and murderer. Aided by Bella, Rough proves Manningham's true identity and finally Bella achieves a few moments of sweet revenge for the suffering inflicted on her.

Gasping

Comedy. Ben Elton
M3 (young, middle-age) F2 (young) with doubling, or M3 F2, 3 other roles M or F. Various simple settings.

Lockheart Industries are making serious money, but Sir Chiffley Lockheart is looking for the buzz given by a new way to make money where no money existed before. Philip, his pushy workaholic exec., suggests selling designer air as a privatised alternative to polluted urban fug. Eventually, oxygen runs low and new supplies have to be found. The third world is plundered for its resources, the world starts gasping and nly the biggest suckers survive ... Period 1990
ISBN 0 573 01773 5

The Gay Deceiver

Comedy. John Patrick 5 men, 2 women. Interior

Having decided to "come out of the closet," David returns to his parents' Florida home with his lover, Butch, determined to reveal his homosexuality. But while his mother, Julia, and his dotty grandmother, Bunny, seem unruffled by his declaration, his father, Filmore, a rich and very conservative Bible publisher, may be another matter. And, to add to the complications, David is hopeful that he will be able to persuade his father to back an off-Broadway show starring Butch - a female impersonator who poses as "Maigorilla" the Spanish spitfire. As Butch is auditioning his act for the others Filmore suddenly arrives and, as luck would have it, is immediately smitten by the fetching "senorita." Furthermore, Filmore, who is running for mayor, senses that "Maigorilla" could help him to gain the Spanish vote - which is substantial in Florida. Inevitably the two young men are not only drawn into Filmore's campaign, but succeed beyond his wildest hopes, and while the grateful Filmore agrees to back his son's show he insists that he will do so only if David and "Maigorilla" agree to marry. Needless to say the resultant complications multiply hilariously, until Bunny inadvertently snatches off Butch's wig, abruptly revealing the truth to the shaken Filmore. Fortunately, however, tolerance (with a little help from some appropriate biblical quotations) prevails and, in a touching, final scene, father and son, for the first time, come to know - and accept - each other for what they really are.
ISBN: 0-8222-0433-9

The Gazebo

Comedy/Melodrama. Alec Coppel, based on a story by Myra Coppel and Alec Coppel. 9 men, 3 women. Interior

A writer of TV whodunits and whysits, always with an eye toward inventing the almost perfect crime, gets into a spot where he has to commit a real do-it-yourself murder. His wife has become the target of blackmail, so the writer has to silence the so-and-so with a six-shooter and then find a place to hide the body. Having acquired at auction a gazebo for their suburban backyard, the writer and his wife decide to plant the blackmailer in its fresh concrete foundation. Mysteriously, it isr t long before the body turns up again - in the middle of their living room! Soon the house is crawling with detectives and district attorneys, all looking to point the finger somewhere, thus casting the writer in a role he never expected he'd have to play - the suspect!
ISBN. 0-8222-0434-7

Gemini

Play. Albeit Innaurato. 4 men, 3 women. Exterior.

The story takes place in the backyard of adjoining houses in South Philadelphia: one house occupied by Fran Geminiani, a labourer, and his son, Francis, a Harvard student; the other by a boisterous, earthy divorcée named Bunny and her fat, asthmatic son, Herschel. It is the eve of Francis' twenty-first birthday, and suddenly he is paid a surprise visit by two friends from college, a brother and sister named Hastings, who set up a tent in the backyard. The friends, Randy and Judith, are wealthy, attractive and from an elevated social background which contrasts painfully with Francis' own humble circumstances. In addition, while Judith is in love with Francis, he is infatuated with Randy (or thinks he is) and it is from this unsettling discovery that the plot proceeds - a series of lively, funny, touching and revealing incidents which occur in fast-moving, antic succession until the final, joyous moments of the play.
ISBN: 0-8222-0435-5