 |
|
A Hyperbolic Potboiler. Mark O'Donnell. Food Technology, a giant conglomerate, is being run by Cathexa Heitz,
daughter of the aged founder, Hobart Heitz, (who has retreated to
his enormous estate with his second wife, a teenaged ex-porn star)
with the advice and counsel of the ruthless Blade Crevvis (who has
an adjoining skyscraper torn down because it reflects the sun in
his eyes). Into Cathexa's life comes an ingenuous young scientist,
Junius Upsey, who has invented a cellophane helmet that converts
the sun's rays into nourishment, thereby obviating the need for conventional
food. Cathexa and her father are taken with Junius and his invention,
but Blade (who is secretly plotting to destroy mankind) definitely
is not - which leads to the frantic hilarity that ensues as Blade
and his evil assistant, Smurgison, seek to remove this obstacle to
their nefarious plans. Happily all works out for the best, thanks
to the last minute intervention of a deus ex machina and the
diligent efforts of a 10-year-old reporter, who has become the most
popular anchorman on TV because "everybody trusts a kid." Nice People Dancing to Good Country Music Play. Lee Blessing. Eve Wilfong, who lives over the "Nice People Dancing To Good Country
Music Bar" is paid a visit by her niece Catherine Empanger, a novice
nun who's been asked to leave her convent. It seems Catherine suffers
from a curious compulsion to yell obscenities at the wrong moment,
and even, on occasion, bark like a dog. Roy, an honest if simple
fellow from the bar downstairs, wants to court Catherine whether
she's a nun or not. Eve feels she should give her niece the benefit
of her experiences with men before allowing her to venture back into
the mad modern country world. What follows is not simply comic and
well-observed, but romantic and affecting as well. Play. Tom Stoppard The action takes place in the imaginary African state of Kambawe,
which is undergoing a civil war against a dictatorial President.
The main subject of the play, however, is British journalism the
relationships and competitiveness between rival journalists. Underlying
both themes is that of the freedom of the press and, more widely,
freedom itself. Presented at the Royal National Theatre starring
Diana Rigg. Drama. Richard Greenberg. Herbert Stempel is the first winner of the big money quiz show 21 and
the man who took a dive for the scandal's more famous victor, Charles
Van Doren. Orchestrated by 21's producer Dan Enright - a television
devil incarnate, an abstract force of evil who persuades both Stempel
and Van Doren to cheat - we watch both of the exceptionally gifted
contestants fall from grace and analyze each of their weaknesses.
Stempel sells his soul for an attempt to be an actor; Van Doren tries
to break away ftom his life governed by strict rules and expectations
from a family with ideals he struggles to meet. Enright, also serving
as the play's glib, seductive narrator, has the uncanny ability to
reveal each of the contestants' vulnerabilities and he manipulates
them to a profitable end, the audience siding with him at every scheming
turn. At the end of Congress' probe into the scandal, Charles Van
Doren confesses his guilt as Stempel throws his head back and sobs
the bitter laughter of revenge as well as defeat. Van Doren retreats
to his father's country house and, in a touching moment, like a stroke
victim recovering his use of words, identifies all of the species
of trees that surround the house, as he reconnects to his family. Drama. Reynolds Price. Night Dance opens in 1945. Genevieves husband, Wayne, is
due home any day now from World War II which has recently ended.
Porter, who has made the Navy his life, is already home, enjoying
Roma's cooking and catching up on the news. Neal had not qualified
to go to war and remained at home, running the store, and running
interference between the two important women in his life. Taw has
returned to teaching and, much to Roma's dismay, has not borne a
child. The war took it's toll on the town, but one more phone call
leaves Neal to tell of Waynes death, by uninformed sniper fire, to
Genevieve and to Wayne's father. Genevieves despair overtakes her
as she takes her own life, but not without appearing to Neal before
her soul departs, in a beautiful farewell to friendship and life.
What Neal does not see, but Genevieve achieves is her loving reunion
with Wayne. The loss of both his friends forces Neal to enter into
an adult part of his life he tried to avoid, but the tragedy helps
draw his family closer together. Drama. Howard Korder : Lou, a 26-year-old auto parts clerk, rents a shabby urban bachelor
pad. His 18-year-old brother, Tim, is crashing there. Getting to
know each other's ways, the brothers trade slurred, desultory banter
that touches on sex, booze and the almost mythical exploits of their
older brother, Monty. At one point, in a great monologue, Lou recounts
how he lost his virginity at 12 years old to Monty's girlfriend while
on an inflatable horse life preserver in a pool. The conversation
turns to Tim's late night whereabouts: Does he have a girl? What's
he doing hanging around the park until late at night? Is he really
innocent? It is finally revealed that Tim is doing drugs and Lou
is a small time drug dealer. Though starting off as Lou leading his
younger brother through a crash course in survival, by the end of
the play, Tim has taken control of the situation. The brothers pair
off for a showdown of sibling rivalry halfway between life and death
and Abbot and Costello, but no longer just a little brother, Tim
takes advantage of Lou's drug contacts and set up a deal for himself. Drama. Frank Gagliano. Roads End Branch of the public library is a decaying, ominous place,
where no one comes to borrow books any more, despite the efforts
of the staff to keep it a going concern. But the tension that hangs
in the air affects them too, and they bicker amongst themselves,
egged on by the scheming young temporary staff member who has wormed
his way into the head librarian's confidence. Then mysterious phone
calls are received, shadowy figures lurk outside and a pair of unknown
young men drop in and prowl aimlessly about the stacks. The head
librarian, Mrs. Vickers, is willing to believe that their interest
is reading - until the moment of seizure suddenly threatens and the
two young men turn out to be members of a gang of toughs calling
themselves the Dunces. Their purpose is to take over the library
and destroy it. Surrounded and besieged, Mrs. Vickers and her staff
wage a seesaw battle to protect what they have and hold back the
tide of ugliness which threatens to engulf them. In the end the night
of threatened evil continues unresolved, but the courage and resourcefulness
which have come forth to stave off destruction remain resolute as
the lights dim and the defenders wait uncertainly for the attack
which is sure to come. Marsha Norman Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, explores the final hour in the life
of Jessie, a young woman who, quite simply, has decided that life
is no longer worth living. In the living room/kitchen of a small
house which she shares with her mother, Jessie sets about tidying
the house and making lists of things to be looked after while her
mother's sense of desperate helplessness begins to build. In the
end she can only stand by, stunned and unbelieving, as Jessie ends
her profound unhappiness in one fatal, stunning and deeply disturbing
moment. Play. Emlyn Williams Danny has already murdered one woman, and there is little doubt
that he will soon murder another - the aged owner of the house. He
gradually insinuates himself into her affections in a skilful manner,
for Dan is a dashing young assassin, a completely self-centred psychopath
with no feelings and a vast imagination, who is perpetually acting,
for his own edification, the part of the murderer. Period 1935 (in Latin-American Plays). Jose Triana. Trans S. Doggart Three siblings plot to kill their parents in this controversial
masterpiece by Jose Thana. In the game-playing scenarios the siblings
invent, they play the parts of the parents, policemen and judges.
This play provides a dramatic allegory of the political situation
in Cuba in the 1960s, with its call to revolution echoed in the childrens'
need to overcome their fear and turn convention upside down. 'Utterly
compelling' The Scotsman. Play. Tennessee Williams Shannon, a minister defrocked for blasphemy and seduction, is now a travel guide in Mexico. Coping with a group of Baptist women furious because he has taken them off the advertised route and slept with a girl in the party, he arrives at a ramshackle inn run by a brash and 'rapaciously lusty' proprietress. The confrontations among these ill-assorted characters lead to Shannon's final degradation and to a general acceptance that personal fates must be accepted, and life endured. Period 1940 Drama. Tennessee Williams. Within the broken down environs of a cheap Mexican resort hotel
there is a mood of pervading loneliness and despair as intrusive
as the Equinoxial storm that stirs sudden lightning flashes and gushes
through the tattered room. The desolation, the emptiness are in the
people: the tough, sex-starved widow who runs the hotel; the neurotic,
defrocked minister, and the gentle maiden lady from New England.
Thrown together in this squalid setting their human needs become
explicit, and from their conflicts comes the realisation that life
must be endured and that the spirit will somehow survive even beyond
the limits of anguish. The play is chiefly concerned with the relationship
of the Reverend T Lawrence Shannon and Miss Hannah Jelkes, the sad,
fortyish lady who travels the world with her grandfather ("the oldest
practising poet in the world"), painting quick portraits for a fee,
while the nonagenarian recites poetry to hotel guests. Rev. Shannon,
having been relieved of his cloth for sexual irregularities, has
landed at the Costa Verde hotel, near Acapulco, on the verge of one
of his periodic mental breakdowns. The proprietress, an old friend,
is prepared to offer him a bed and will, in fact, share it with him
if he wishes. But then Miss Jelkes and her grandpa arrive, penniless
but prepared to offer their services to the guests in return for
lodging. There is a strange and immediate rapport between the discredited
cleric and the lonely artist. The play's most poignant moments -
scenes of enormous compassion - grow out of the understanding of
these two people, their mutual need for companionship and roots,
their final moments of nobility in small gestures of unselfishness
to aid one another. Drama. Per Olov Enquist. Translated by Ross Shideler. The action takes place on the stage of the Dagmar Theatre, in Copenhagen,
where Strindberg and his estranged wife, Siri, are preparing the
first performance of his short play The Stronger. With Siri
is her friend Marie Caroline David, an alcoholic actress whom Strindberg
accuses of having a lesbian attachment to his wife. As the rehearsal
progresses, the lines of the play being read are cleverly shaded
to reflect the bitterness of Strindberg's personal situation: his
frustration as an artist; his dismay at the loss of his wife's love;
his enmity toward his rival. Ranging from fiery outbursts to moments
of high humour, the play builds an uncanny and overpowering portrait
of the tortured genius, while achieving a poignancy and sense of
truth which are theatre at its finest and most vivid. Play. Derek Lomas Suspense drama and horror are contained within a framework of realistic,
fast-paced dialogue. The Syndicate close in on Owen Voss on his first
day out of prison. Where did he hide the heroin haul? Or if he sold
it, where is the money? Gordon and Barbara are the first to arrive
at Gordon's remote country cottage where the drugs are believed to
be hidden. When Pentecost and his bully boy, Johnson, turn up the
pressure is really on. Play. Frank Vickery A perceptive, entertaining and highly comical play from the author
of One O'Clock From the House. Gareth
and Shirley's wedding day does not get off to an auspicious start.
Gareth, egged on by his cocky, good-looking brother Kenneth, has
a post-stag-night hangover so bad that he can barely speak, the bride
is three months' pregnant and Granddad, confused after getting stuck
in the outside loo is unsure whether Shirley is marrying Gareth or
Kenneth! Drama. Horton Foote. The play takes place in Harrison, Texas, jumping back and forth
between 1923 to 1963. Following the Weems family as it grows up,
we watch its members find their places in society. Of the main characters:
Mr. Weems is a banker with a heart. He cannot easily stand up against
his wife, but puts money away for his daughter, Laura Lee, to do
with as she wishes, knowing everyone tries to run her life. Mrs.
Weems is a busybody who can't see how emotions guide people's decisions
so she thwarts them by interaction or ignorance. Their son, Sherman,
grows up to be the banker his father never was - a banker who is
doesn't consider another person when it comes to money. He is in
a bitter marriage, but won't leave because his wife has threatened
to expose his adultery, thereby threatening his career. Laura Lee
only wants to love, and to get away from, her family, mostly her
mother. On bad advice, Laura Lee never married and though she doesn't
live in regret, she feels the loss of the two men she loved. As an
adult all she wants now is a house, but everything she tries, everywhere
she turns, she is told no, money comes first and she has no control
over her own finances. In an almost final blow, her brother Sherman
sells the house she wants to another buyer because the price was,
in his opinion, too high for Laura Lee, but not for his other buyer,
who got it for an even lower price. Laura Lee had the money and asked
Sherman to arrange the sale through the bank. But her family has
always sabotaged chances for independence, especially where money
was involved, and this time was no different. At the age of 60, Laura
lives in an apartment with her mother, bitterly agreeing to live
there until she can find a house for them both. When she learns her
brother and mother agree that two old women should not move into
a house, Laura collapses and soon dies. Mrs. Weems, at 93, finally,
has an inkling of what her life has been when she says that living
that long is her punishment. What's left of the Weems family seems
to fade into the landscape. Suspense. Lucille Fletcher. Unable to sleep, Elaine Wheeler paces the living room of her Manhattan
townhouse, troubled by unsettling memories and vague fears. Her husband
tries to comfort her, but when he steps away for a moment Elaine
screams as she sees (or believes she sees) the body of a dead man
in the window across the way. The police are called, but find nothing
except an empty chair. Elaine's terror grows as shortly thereafter
she sees still another body - this time a woman's - but by now the
police are sceptical and pay no heed to her frantic pleas. Her husband,
claiming that Elaine may be on the verge of a breakdown, calls in
a lady psychiatrist who agrees with his suggestion that Elaine should
commit herself to a sanitarium for treatment. From this point on,
the plot moves quickly and grippingly as those involved - Elaine's
old friend and house guest Blanche, the inquisitive and rather sinister
man who lives next door and the nosy German maid, Helga - all contribute
to the deepening suspense and mystery of the play as it draws towards
its riveting and chilling climax. Play. Norman Robbins Marion Bishop, an elderly writer, is dying. Katherine looks after
her in a most caring way, while coping with her mentally retarded
brother. When Katherine takes some leave, Laura, an experienced nurse,
comes to take care of Marion. A series of mysterious phone calls
and the appearance of Raymond, Marion's rapacious nephew, set off
a nightmare situation. Deceit, suspicion, blackmail and incriminations
are subtly woven into a web of crime which is completed by a dramatic
confrontation scene with an ingenious twist. Nightmare: the Fright of Your Life Horror thriller. Roger S. Moss Frank and Jenny Gilman think they have found their dream house:
a converted chapel in a quiet country village. The dream soon turns
into a nightmare, however, as they are attacked by intruders who
seem, for some reason, to be interested only in the contents of the
deep freeze. Frank and Jenny investigate and the true horror of their
situation soon emerges in this taut and exciting, yet often blackly
hilarious, horror thriller. Drama. Leslie Ayvazian. 5 men, 5 women. Unit Set Three generations of an Armenian/American family yell, dance, carry
food around, play tambourines, rollerblade, cry, scream, laugh and
support each other. When daughter, Ani, 21, travels to Armenia, she
learns more of her history and troubled heritage. When she returns,
she learns much from her recently widowed grandmother, Non, who teaches
her how to incorporate this new knowledge into her life. In doing
so, Ani empowers her mother, who embarks on her own pilgrimage to
the homeland. These are kind-hearted people,, embracing life even
as they discover their historical tragedies. Comedy Melchior Lengyel. The modern Classic, long a great favourite on the European stage, is familiar to American audiences through the motion picture version starring Greta Garbo. It is also the basis for the successful Broadway musical comedy, Silk Stockings. As long as East and West fail to meet, this comedy of a beautiful young Russian girl in sinful Paris will go on being as fresh and stimulating as tomorrow's headlines. Play. Horton Foote. 6 men, 7 women. Unit Set Having been exempted from military service in World War I, Horace
Robedeaux is back home in Harrison, Texas. He and his wife Elizabeth,
along with their infant daughter, are now settled in a new house
built for them by Elizabeth's father, Mr. Vaughn. While their fortunes
have improved, the nation reels from a spreading 'flu epidemic which
soon reaches Harrison and infects Mr. Vaughn and Horace. During Horace's
illness his daughter also contracts the 'flu and dies bringing to
the young parents a sadness which even the armistice can do little
to allay. In time Elizabeth becomes pregnant again, and the play
ends with brightening prospects for all: the nation is finally at
peace; Horace and Elizabeth are blessed with a healthy baby boy;
and even Elizabeth's wayward. younger brother, who had been of deep
concern for Mr. Vaughn, shows signs of finally coming to terms with
the responsibilities of adulthood. Play. Russell Lees. It is the night before President Nixon is to announce his resignation, and he has summoned Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to the Lincoln Sitting Room. Kissinger arrives, expecting to find his President preparing to resign. But Nixon is in the process of wrestling with that very decision. Unstable, nostalgic, garrulous and paranoid, Nixon leads his Secretary of State on a journey through the high moments of his administration. The journey borders on the surreal as Nixon pressures Kissinger into re-enacting crucial scenes: Kissinger plays Nixon, Nixon plays Brezhnev, Kissinger plays Kennedy and Mao - the scenarios become dizzying. Meanwhile, Kissinger is subtly working to convince Nixon to step down. If he does, Kissinger can pursue his geopolitical goals - and his own quest for historical glory - unencumbered by a weakened President. Nixon, however, can't face the lonely aftermath of such a decision; he imagines himself "wandering some hellish golf course, waiting to die." As the evening and the drinking progress the two concoct a plan to provoke an international crisis that would allow Nixon to leave office a hero. Kissinger muses, "Sometimes I stare in the mirror. What's happening behind those eyes? I'm astonished. Mystified." Then adds, "I like it." Nixon confides he no longer stares in the mirror, although he did on the way up. He not only stared, he talked to himself. "'You sly dog,' I'd say. And we'd share a secret smile. But then I fell. I fell like Satan tossed from heaven." |