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Leslie Sands : Thriller 3M 3F Interior set Within minutes of the opening of this play, we are plunged into
the middle of an explosive situation. Janet Preston, a well-known
authoress who lives alone in a remote cottage on the Yorkshire Moors,
has killed her husband, a complete rogue and criminal on the run.
Before she can get rid of the body, she is confronted by his accomplice
George, who blackmails her into agreeing to pass him off as the dead
man until such time as he can make a getaway. The events that follow
are full of twists and excitement and the unexpected denouement skilfully
reconciles the audience's sympathies and sense of involvement with
a demand for justice. Play Ira Levin. 2 men, 3 women. Interior Hilde, a young German refugee, works as companion to Mrs. Price, a wealthy and beautiful invalid. Hildes fiance is a pianist, now employed at a bakery and practicing at night for what he hope will be a great career. Hilde brings Paul and Mrs. Price together, in the hope that Mrs. Price will take an interest in the young musician and she does. But Hildes plans go awry as Mrs. Price's interest in Paul grows to an extent where she does not want to share him with Hilde. Mrs. Price, seemingly so charming and pitiful, begins to reveal herself as an unpleasant, self-centered and headstrong woman. But it is only when Hilde has cooperated with Mrs. Price in a plan to bring Paul into the house to live, that she realizes that there is no place for her in Mrs. Price's schemes. As Hilde sees Mrs. Price's true nature, Paul remains conveniently blind to what is going on. Play.
Ronald Harwood This ingenious ironical comedy of betrayed love was produced at the Queen's Theatre, London, in 1985-86. Nadia is an interpreter at the Foreign Office in London involved in negotiations with a Russian delegation. Her Russian counterpart turns out to be Victor, with whom she had a tempestuous affair some ten years previously. Moving and comic complications ensue in this tale of love across the Iron Curtain. Comedy:. Dorothy Allensworth and Carl Allensworth. Although he was one of the best salesman the paint company ever
had, Fred Diefendorf has given up the road and settled down on the
farm which he has bought outside of Cleveland, his idea being to
make a living from the soil and to be with his children as they grow
up. Furthermore, Fred is awed by the surge of growth and progress
which is being felt in the nation, and is determined that his family
will have all the modern improvements - including an inside bathroom.
If the United States can build the Panama Canal, then the Diefendorfs
can keep in step with the times - although Fred's creditors are not
always as sure as he is of the millennium to come. But Fred is not
to be stopped, and before long he has run his family (and the budget)
ragged with his schemes and expenses, which seem to produce new crisis
at every turn. When a neighbour refuses to let him lay his water
line across his property Fred digs under the Interurban tracks -
running into poison ivy, slicing through the main Western Union cable,
and causing a derailment which chops a wing off his neighbour's house.
But while Fred is the eternal optimist, his wife Bessie knows that
progress has its price, and that faith in the future won't pay for
the dancing lessons, new clothes and college education that she wants
her children to have. By the time Fred has put them three thousand
dollars in debt, Bessie decides that it is also time to call a halt
and to go to work herself - a sobering turn of events which finally
brings Fred back to earth. So he packs up his paint samples and heads
for the road - at least until his present dreams are paid for and
new ones pop up to take their place. Intimate Exchanges. A related series of plays. Alan Ayckbourn Intimate Exchanges is a related series of plays totalling eight scripts which can be performed by just two actors, although more could be used if desired. As each scene ends, a character faces a decision, the result of which determines the course of the rest of the play. Volume I: Affairs in a Tent, Events on a Garden Terrace, A Garden Fete, A Pageant ISBN 0573016135 Inventing A New Colour (in First Run) Paul Godfrey : 3m If. Drama. Flexible staging. Set in Exeter in the summer of 1942, this is a poetically written
domestic drama concerning a family and the evacuee who comes to stay.
The fear resulting from a competitive school and the presence of
war encourage the boys into a prank which goes terribly wrong. The
whole play 'echoes to the authentic ... reverberations of local history' Guardian. Play. Tom Stoppard 'From the bare bones of the dry life of A. E. Housman ... Tom Stoppard has been inspired to write the most emotionally powerful and enthralling play of his career. Never before has he written with such exciting eloquence ... It's a tremendous, scaring vision of a sacrificed life.' Evening Standard. Period 1877-1936. Play. Ken Hill, from the novel
by H. G. Wells Ken Hill has turned H.G. Wells's gripping novel into a music-hall
romp, combining tongue-in-cheek humour with tragedy and magic. The
sinister Griffin arrives in the village of Iping with a bandaged
face and an unsociable manner. Was it really an accident that destroyed
his face, or is he a criminal on the run'? He takes off his gloves
to reveal no hands and his bandages to reveal no head! Then the pranks
- comic and malevolent - truly begin ... Comedy. Arthur Laurents. 3 men, 4 women, 1 boy. 2 Exteriors (One very simple). Invitation to a March skirts about the fairy story of Sleeping
Beauty, but never settles for long in one mould. There is social
comment on conformity and other failings of our modern civilization;
there is satire on the mores of the rich and the not so rich; there
is also pure, unadulterated, old-fashioned romance. The story deals
largely with the conflict between summer visitors to the South
Shore of Long Island and two of the permanent residents who become
entangled in their lives. The visitors, rich, sophisticated, conventional
(although they would bridle at the word), have come for the wedding
of a lovely young girl and a highly eligible young man. There is,
however, one deterrent to this eminently suitable alliance. The
bride-to-be keeps falling asleep, especially on those occasions
when her intended discusses their secure and predictable future.
During one of these naps another young man, poor, unambitious and
unshackled, kisses the girl and wakes her up with a vengeance.
From then on, there is a battle between the kissing boy's mother,
as free a soul as her son, and the two mothers of the prospective
bride and groom. And in the middle is caught an attractive man,
who is inextricably involved with both camps. Ion. Play.
Euripides, in a new version by David Lan In Euripides' enchanting play, the young hero, Ion - a foundling engaged to keep the Temple of Apollo tidy - meets the Queen of Athens. The two strike up an instant rapport. She tells him of a 'friend' who was seduced by Apollo and gave birth to a child whom she abandoned ... After a series of surprising and disturbing twists, mother and son are reunited and the story is resolved in a manner which foreshadows a new genre of European drama: the family romance.
The Greeks and the Trojans are on the brink of war. Agamemnon, leader of the Greeks, has a stark choice - should he sacrifice his daughter to the gods in return for a fair wind on his fleet, or should he place paternal love over the interests of the state? His wife, Klytaimnestra also has a choice - whether to remain loyal to her husband, or to stand by her daughter. And the daughter herself, Iphigeneia, has the most difficult challenge of all: to die willingly by her father's hand to ensure her nation's freedom. This explosive and passionate new version Euripides' great tragedy
was commissioned, and first performed, by the Lyric Theatre, Belfast.
Without over-emphasising the relevance of the play's themes to his
own community, the Northern Irish writer, Colin Teevan, nonetheless "draws
on the contemporary vernacular to ripping, rollicking, rumbustious
effect ... and has given us a piece of theatre that is wonderfully
robust, resolute and resonant" Paul Muldoon Play. Elmer Rice. 7 men, 6 women. Interior. William and Margaret Dreier have a small farm in Prussia, but their good life has been darkened by the clouds of war. William's brother has died a hero, and now William has been called into service, leaving Margaret to care for the farm and for the others in their family who hive been uprooted by the war. During William's absence the rigours of life at home grow worse, but Margaret carries on valiantly, tending the sick and wounded, caring for her dead sister's children. Although warned to flee at the approach of marauding Cossacks, she choosés to stay, and when William comes back at last, wounded and in rags, he finds that Margaret has becomes the unwilling mother of a Cossack's child. Deeply shocked, William leaves again, believing that the government which has subjected him to so much will now make amends to him. But in the end he returns to Margaret, realising his sacrifice for the fatherland was a hollow one and that his vaunted honour is of no consequence beside the deep humanity which made Margaret go on struggling to preserve life while he fought blindly to destroy it. Isadora Duncan Sleeps With the Russian Navy Play. Jeff Wanshel. 8 men, 3 women, 1 boy, 1 girl. Open Stage. As the play begins we are in Hollywood, where a failed author has
been offered a contract to write a film on the life and loves of
Isadora Duncan. Reluctant at first, he decides to go ahead with the
project. As he creates the various scenes which will, in time, become
the movie, these are acted out by the real-life participants - including
Stanislavsky, Walt Whitman, Rodin, Gordon Craig and, of course, Isadora
herself. As he probes ever more deeply into the marriages, lovers,
and often shocking exploits of her life, the writer comes to regard
Isadora as the first modern woman: totally free and unfettered by
convention. But, inevitably, the demands of Hollywood must be met,
and the truth distorted by the realities of the box office. The result
is a pitched battle between the now dedicated author and the crass
producer - a battle which yields scenes of colourful action and wild
hilarity, but which, in the final essence, serves to enhance the
timeless image of this uninhibited, deeply creative, and undeniably
great artist. Comedy. Wendy Wasserstein. The comedy is a witty and involving exploration of a contemporary
feminine dilemma; the conflict between personal independence and
romantic fulfillment. Specifically, the play deals with the post-college
careers (and dilemmas) of two former classmates, a short, slightly
plump would-be writer named Janie Blumberg, and her tall, thin gorgeous
WASP friend, Harriet Cornwall. Both are struggling to escape from
lingering parental domination and to establish their own lives and
identities. In Janie's case this leads to an inconclusive involvement
with a young Jewish doctor who calls her "Monkey"; while Harriet
assails the world of big business and has an affair with her hard-driving
(and married) boss. Told in a fast-moving series of inventive, alternately
hilarious and touchingly revealing scenes, the play explores their
parallel stories with uncommon wit and wisdom - resulting, ultimately,
in a heightened awareness which, while not providing all the answers,
goes a long way toward achieving the maturity and self-assuredness
which both protagonists so desperately desire. A male chauvinist comedy. James Saunders It is sometime in the future, in the new age of woman, which began when women, sick of the destruction and futility of war, turned on their men and killed them. On a semi-tropical island, five sisters live in idyllic paradise, until one day two brothers are washed up on the beach. The two sexes try to come to terms with each other despite the handicap of being unable to communicate verbally. |