 |
|
Comedy. John Patrick. 2 men, 4 women. Interior. The setting is again Opal's tumbledown home on the edge of the city
dump, where Opal has a visitor looking for a tire to fit his 1927
Reo truck. Misguided into thinking that Opal is a rich eccentric,
the shifty visitor, Norman, announces (fallaciously) that he too
is a Kronkie - and Opal's long-lost kin. The upshot is that the warmhearted
Opal takes him, and his whole family, in - whereupon they scheme
to do her out of her supposed fortune. When Norman confides that
his daughter-in-law, Verna, is pregnant (abetted by a well placed
pillow) Opal decides to leave all her worldly goods tó the "baby," and
the others have to settle for petty thievery while they figure out
how to get around their lie. Needless to say the
"plot thickens" hilariously as they do so, but happily all ends well,
at least for Opal, who emerges safe, sound and ready for whatever
may come next. Comedy. John Patrick. 2 men, 3 women. Interior. Bent as usual on a good deed, Opal tries to round up a husband for
her friend Rosie, and answers a lonely hearts ad placed by "Mister
Handsome'-who, when he shows up, proves to be a ninety-five-year-old
escapee from a nursing home. As expected, complications ensue, and
when Rosie rejects her would-be suitor, Opal reluctantly agrees to
marry him in order to keep the old man from the clutches of his scheming
daughter. It seems that he. really is quite rich, and his desire
is to spend his last days (and his fortune) with a nubile maiden
on a South Pacific island; while his daughter wants him to expire
quickly, and quietly, in the old folks home. Thereafter the plots
and counter-plots multiply hilariously as the daughter and her husband
try to discredit the marriage (and convince Opal that she is cuckoo),
while the old man devises his own plan to catch them in their dirty
work. Happily he succeeds, and off he goes to his fond reward, leaving
Opal with both an annulment and another delightful lesson in life
to pass on to her myriad admirers. Comedy. John Patrick. 8 men, 3 women (of the men, many are bit parts). Interior. Again, Opal's abundant good nature has made her the victim of another's
baser instincts, this time the culprit being an oily, unscrupulous
politician who is running for re-election as mayor. But Opal, abetted
by new friends and old, decides to fight back - by becoming a candidate
herself! To the consternation of her rival, Opal's appeal to the
voters is embarrassingly great and foul play appears to be the only
way to stave off an upset. What ensues will keep the audience in
suspense - and roaring with laughter, until an unexpected turn of
events brings all to its happy, lighthearted and delightfully satisfying
conclusion. Comedy. John Patrick. 1 man, 3 women. Interior Searching for costumes for their next production, Desmond and Queenie,
the "stars" of the local summer stock company, drop by "Opal's Antique
Junque Shop." While rooting through Opal's treasures they spot a
nondescript oil painting - a still life of a dead mallard duck and
an apple - and recalling an item in the morning newspaper about an
old master which has disappeared from the local art museum, suddenly
realize that this may be the missing canvas, for which the insurance
company is offering a sizable reward. Summoning up all their acting
skills, they try to charm Opal into selling the painting for a pittance,
but she explains that she plans to give it to her friend, Rosie,
as a birthday present, whereupon the plot thickens hilariously. Desmond
and Queenie resort to everything from outrageous flattery to knock-out
drops trying to get their hands on the picture; Rosie, however, rejects
it on the grounds that it reminds her of her pet duck (which was
run over by a truck); and the plotters, much to their glee, march
off triumphantly with their prize - unaware that a later edition
of the paper carries a new. item: the old master has been found,
and the canvas which disappeared was a worthless copy which the museum
had thrown out with the garbage! Farce. Nagle Jackson. 6 men, 4 women. Interior. The place is the Opéra Comique in Paris in 1875, at the first
performance of Bizet's new opera, Carmen. All the "best people"
are there but, as the cynical, worldly-wise usher, Odile, points
out, they have not come to hear the music. Rather it is "amour" which
they have on their minds: Paul Vigneron (who is having an affair
with Madame de la Corniche) hopes to pair his sex-obsessed son Hector
(who figuratively undresses every woman he sees) with his mistress'
daughter, Viviane; while Viviane (who is not quite the innocent she
seems) is hoping to bed down with the father rather than the son.
Also on hand are a nervous Georges Bizet (for whose opera Odile has
predicted sure and permanent failure); the revered Charles Gounod,
doyen of French opera (who is not above the temptations of the flesh,
despite his age and exalted status); and the tempting coquette, La
Tartine (who has come to seduce Gounod but, in the comic doings,
finds herself closeted naked with the randy Hector Vigneron instead).
Eventually things become so hilariously tangled that straightening
them out is seemingly impossible - but straightened out they are,
except in the case of poor Bizet, who knows only that his cherished
work has failed that evening, and does not live on long enough thereafter
to learn that, in time, it will become the world's most popular opera. Play. Neal Bell. 3 men, 1 woman. Interior. The scene is a small control room, where three CIA agents are closeted
behind a two-way mirror, taping the off-stage actions of a fourth
agent, a young woman who is having a prearranged passionate liaison
with a suspected drug pusher. Ostensibly they are gathering information
on the narcotics trade, but as they swap anecdotes and information
the fact of their own moral decadence becomes increasingly evident.
The men represent three contrasting faces of espionage: one is coldly
authoritative; another, an older man, approaches his work with humorous
detachment; while the third, an eager trainee, is learning the business "from
the ground up."
When the fourth agent, the woman, joins the others, the play takes
on a special urgency. She, beautiful and seductive, had been romantically
involved with the two older and she now seeks revenge for their complicity
in the downfall of her father, a former colleague destroyed by drugs.
In the end, however, she cannot wield the power she has over them
for she, like the others, has become too demoralized and depersonalized
by her work to react effectively to the outrage she feels. Comedy. David Tristram David Tristram, author of What's for Pudding?, turns his attention to marital infidelity and its warring consequences in this adult-humoured comedy. Mark and Vicky and Judith and Eric have something in common and a chance meeting could have made for a pleasant social evening. Unfortunately, as they all come face to face, the common denominator turns out to be that they each had an affair with their opposite partner and it isn't long before the air is thick with insults, black eyes and broken china! (in Latin-American Plays) Carlos Fuentes. Trans S. Doggart Set in Venice the day Orson Welles died, this extraordinary play
relentlessly stretches the imagination with artistic reveries and
supernatural fantasies. 'Rich in language and movement, fantasy and
reality, sensuality and cruelty; as iconoclastic as the magic realist
boom of the 1960s' Scotland on Sunday. Drama. Mel Arrighi. 8 men, 4 women. Unit Set Set in the near future, the play is structured as a series of flashbacks
which take place during the trial of one Andy Neff for crimes against
humanity. The flashbacks reveal the following narrative: the inexorable
increase of racial tensions brings to power in America a rightwing,
racist political party, the Liberal Party, and the nation becomes
a virtual dictatorship. The other nations of the world band against
the United States. With war and revolution about to break out any
moment, the Party orders the internment in concentration camps of
all blacks, half a million of whom die while imprisoned. World War
Three is, shortly thereafter, begun - and lost - by the United States.
An International Court calls to account all those responsible for
the genocide. Neff, as the play's title indicates, is an ordinary
man. Basically apolitical, he was a promising, talented film director,
a typical Good German. He rose to national prominence, however, as
director of a series of propaganda anti-black 'educational films'
which were instrumental in establishing the atmosphere of race hatred
which made the genocide possible. His defence, naturally, is that
he had nothing against blacks, didn't realise the effect his work
was going to have - and was just doing his job. From the evidence
of the flashbacks, this all appears to be true. He really didn't
know what he was doing and he didn't intend to hurt anyone. The question
with which the author leaves his audience, thus, are these: are you
the same kind of ordinary man? What will your defence be at the trials?
Will you be found innocent or guilty?" Play. Lyle Kessler Two adult but somehow childlike brothers live in an old row house
in North Philadelphia. Treat, the elder brother, supports himself
and his slightly retarded younger brother by petty thievery. He brings
home a rich man, Harold, intending to get him drunk and swindle him.
Harold moves in and establishes the house as a hideout and base of
operations and, in a strange, hilarious, moving, tender way, becomes
the father figure the boys have never had and always longed for. Comedy. James Prideaux. 3 men, 3 women. Interior. For the past 25 years Lily and Catherine Spangler have lived in
seclusion in their hotel room, their only visitor being their lawyer,
who delivers (in cash) the profits from the steel mill they inherited
from their father. When they first moved into the Chalfont it was
the best hotel in town, but the years have taken their toll, and
now (although the sisters are not aware of it) it is rundown, almost
deserted, and limping along with a skeleton staff. The clientele
has suffered too; their next-door-neighbour is a prostitute-with-a
heart of gold, and the bellhop, Herman, is a con artist who schemes
to cheat the sisters out of the six million dollars he knows they
have tucked away in a trunk by passing himself off as a long-lost
cousin. Lily, the older sister, who has persuaded Catherine that
she has protected her from "all the cares of the world," is guarded
and suspicious about all this, but the gentle, warm-hearted Catherine,
who is aching to know more of life and the outside world, falls easily
into Herman's trap. Inevitably their isolation must end, but facing
reality, and the truth, proves to, be a great deal easier - and funnier
- than either sister had ever imagined. Play. Tennessee Williams A vague reworking of the Orpheus and Eurydice legend in modern America, with a Southern township presumably representing Hell. Thirty-year-old Val Xavier arrives in the gossipy, prejudice ridden township with his guitar, and meets 'Lady' Torrence, whose elderly husband is dying of cancer. His attempts to bring some happiness into her sex-starved life, together with other developments, lead to tragedy for both of them. Period 1940 Play. Marianne and Barrie Hesketh James Stockwell - a respectable professor of history at a polytechnic
- keeps the world at bay and his deputy, Fanny, tries to keep his
feet on the ground. She is an ideal teacher, he is an ideal communicator;
in the last moments of this delicate, perceptive and endearing play
these two qualities are used to work for the other's good when redundancy
notices are handed out and the real world must be faced. Play. Jerry Sterner This award-winning off-Broadway play was seen at London's Lyric
Theatre starring Martin Shaw and Maria Aitkin. Doughnut connoisseur
and Wall Street take-over artist Lawrence Garfinkle goes after a
vulnerable company. Set against the charmingly rapacious financier
are genial company chairman Jorgensen, and his chief executive. They
bring in Kate who specialises in fending off take-overs ... 'It is
something to find a modern American comedy that openly criticises
the moral bankruptcy of our times.' Guardian Play. Simon Gray Simon lives surrounded by all the comforts of the day and strives
to keep himself 'otherwise engaged' from the demands of friends,
relatives and associates. However, the world keeps intruding: his
attempts to play his new Parsifal recording are continually thwarted;
his answer phone recounts the tragic results of a casual, thoughtless
liaison with a girl; and there is a final shock from his wife. Eventually
he finds himself listening to Parsifal, but perhaps with a little
less than his usual self absorption. |