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Play. Henrik Ibsen. A new version by
Christopher Hampton The Ibsen classic, in a new version by Christopher Hampton, was
seen at the Royal National Theatre in 1989 starring Juliet Stevenson
as Hedda '... Hampton's was, above all, language made to be spoken
not quoted. As such it is the key to the production's success in
establishing the sense of the, at times, appallingly comic spectacle
of a claustrophobic and fragile world coming apart at the seams.' What's
On Play. Henrik Ibsen, adapted by John Osborne | M3 F4. Hedda's father seems to have been the only person Hedda loved. He left her his duelling pistols and in her hands they play an important part in the life of more than one person. Thea is loving, talented, and doomed, it seems, to be one of Hedda's victims. Yet at the end Thea saves herself through her own unselfish love of another victim of Hedda's cruelty. John Osborne's adaptation of Ibsen's drama was first seen at the Royal Court Theatre in 1972 with Jill Bennett in the role of Hedda. Henrik Ibsen, Trans K. McLeish : 2m 3f. Classic drama. Single interior set. Restless and discontented in her marriage, Hedda Gabler is drawn
to a former admirer, Lovborg, now a brilliant writer. But he is more
taken with Hedda's old schoolfriend. Driven by jealousy, Hedda destroys
Lovborg, and his precious manuscript, and finally herself. Original
first performed in 1891. Drama. Henrik Ibsen, translated by Michael Meyer. 3 men, 4 women. Unit Set. Hedda, recently married to Jorgen Tesman, is exasperated and contemptuous
of her husband's smug middle-class attitudes. She admires, but resents,
the brilliant scholar Loevborg who has come to town with her old
school friend Thea Elvsted; he is in competition with Jorgen for
a professional appointment. She amuses herself by flirting with Judge
Brack who invites Jorgen and Loevborg to a stag party, where in a
drunken stupor Loevborg loses the manuscript of his important new
book. Jorgen finds the document and Hedda, secretly enjoying the
power of influencing destiny, destroys it. Loevborg is distraught
over the loss and Hedda gives him one of her father's pistols and
suggests he does away with himself - beautifully. Thea is devastated
by the suicide attempt, but she has recovered the original notes
of his book and scholar Tesman offers to help reconstruct the manuscript.
Brack, who has discovered where Loevborg got the gun, now has Hedda
in his grasp, and Tesman is too busy to be concerned. Hedda makes
a grave decision. Wendy Wasserstein : Light Drama 3M 5F Flexible staging Tracing the coming of age of Heidi Holland from her student days
in the 1960s to her successful career as an art historian in the
late 1980s, the play is a moving examination of the progress of a
generation in a rapidly changing world, a time when the status of
women underwent profound and sometimes unsettling changes. Through
the course of events, Heidi gradually distances herself from her
friends as she watches them move from the idealism and political
radicalism of their college years through militant feminism, and,
eventually, back to the materialism which they had sought to reject
in the first place. Play. Wendy Wasserstein. 3 men, 5 women. Unit Set Comprised of a series of interrelated scenes, the play traces the
coming of age of Heidi Holland, a successful art historian, as she
tries to find her bearings in a rapidly changing world. Gradually
distancing herself from her friends, she watches them move from the
idealism and political radicalism of their college years, through
militant feminism and eventually back to the materialism which they
had sought to reject in the first place. Heidi's own path to maturity
involves an affair with the glib, arrogant Scoop Rosenbaum, a womanising
lawyer/publisher who eventually marries for money and position; a
deeper but even more troubling relationship with a charming, witty
young pediatrician, Peter Patrone, who turns out to be gay, and increasingly
disturbing contacts with the other women, now much changed, who were
a part of her childhood and college years. Eventually Heidi comes
to accept the fact that liberation can be achieved only if one is
true to oneself, with goals that come out of need rather than circumstance.
As the play ends she is still "alone" but, having adopted an orphaned
baby, it is clear that she has begun to find a sense of fulfilment
and continuity which may well continue to elude the others of her
anxious, self-centred generation. Play. John Bowen Although not a modern-dress version of Shakespeare's play it does
show how closely its situation of democracy versus dictatorship is
applicable to all times. At the opening Caesar and his entourage
are playing cards at an exclusive club, while Antony and others are
at the craps table. The Senate House becomes a present-day Committee
Room, with a secretary serving coffee and Caesar assassinated by
the use of flick-knives; the forum speeches become television appearances-and
so on throughout the action. Play. Chris Petz The story opens on the aftermath of a wild party to celebrate the
imminent approach of Billy's twenty-first birthday. He has only hazy
memories of the evening and is considerably surprised to find under
blankets on the sofa a pretty girl clad only in pants and bra. From
the auspicious start complications build rapidly and hectically,
involving-among others -a disappearing telegram boy who ends up dressed
as a girl! Play. Ruth and Augustus Goetz. Based
on the novel Washington Square by Henry James The background of the play is New York in the 1850s and the basic
story tells of a shy and plain young girl, Catherine Sloper, who
falls desperately in love with a delightful young fortune hunter.
Catherine's lack of worldliness prevents her from realising that
the young man proposing to her is not entirely drawn to her by her
charm. Catherine's father, a successful doctor, sees through the
fortune hunter and forbids the marriage, but his daughter proposes
an elopement which fails to materialise because the young man knows
most of her expected fortune will go elsewhere if he marries her.
Catherine retires into a little world of her own. But the fortune
hunter turns up once more and again proposes to her. For a moment,
Catherine leads him to believe that she will accept him, but when
he calls by appointment, she locks the door, blows out all the lights,
and allows him to realise that she will not be fooled for the second
time. |