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Play. Anne Valery The play follows the fortunes of a group of ATS girls from their
arrival as a raw, awkward, ill assortment of individuals to their
passing-out parade as a 'perfectly drilled unit of faceless soldiers',
following the shifts and tensions of their personal relationships,
the comedy, drama and - in one case -eventual tragedy that occur
during their period of training together. The action centres on the
girls' barrack room, with small insets in adjacent places. Stephen Greenhorn Alex and Brian are a pair of smalltown boys going nowhere, who get
out the only way they know how - doing a runner with a prized surfboard
owned by Alex's psychopathic boss. The only transport available is
a worn-out Lada, but they head North for Thurso, where the surf is
up all year round. This 'tremendous new comedy' (Herald) was
first performed at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh in 1997 and won
a nomination for Stephen Greenhorn as Scottish Writer of the Year. Play. Peter John Bailey. The time is 1944, the place Catesville, Kansas. Restless and bored
with small-town life, Sarah Carson, an attractive widow of 37, contemplates
selling her late husband's dry goods store and pursuing her dream
of becoming a novelist. The local minister and the boy who works
in the store both make romantic overtures to the lonely Sarah but
she is not moved - until she meets Walter Dobbins, a young soldier
of 20 who is passing through Catesville and who confides to Sarah
that he plans to become an actor after the war. Despite the difference
in their ages Walter and Sarah know immediately that they are kindred
spirits and love grows quickly and spontaneously. After meeting for
a weekend in New York, before Walter goes overseas, they correspond
regularly until Walter is wounded and sent home to Texas to recuperate.
Mustering her courage, Sarah visits Walter at his family's drab home
- and suddenly the difference in their ages becomes, at least for
her, an obstacle too great to overcome. But, in the tender and moving
final moments, of the play, this too gives way to the power of a
love which will not be denied. Play. John Godber Despite misgivings at leaving his wife Gail Tom joins his friend
Andy on a holiday in Spain. Andy enthusiastically joins the lager
louts and takes every opportunity available for illicit sex; Tom
embarks on a wistful, platonic friendship with Trish. Back home,
Andy keeps his infidelity secret and his marriage continues as before;
Tom tells Gail of his innocent holiday friendship and the seeds of
suspicion are instantly sown ... Play. Peter Nichols James and Eleanor have shared twenty-five happily married years, faithful, fulfilled-and boring. So when Kate, mistress of the lately deceased Albert (a close friend of James) and accomplished marriage-wrecker, appears on the scene James easily falls prey to this young seductress. Hungry for revenge on Kate, Albert's widow informs Eleanor of the affair. Alter-egos for James and Eleanor-Jim and Nell -acting as the couple's conscience, comment on the disruption and hurt caused by marital infidelity. Play. Kay Mellor Betty, a passionate, doting mum from Leeds finds it hard to accept
that her son, Mark, is leaving the fold to get married. On the wedding
morning she retreats to the loft where she relives her long-lost
youth and the affair with the man she might have married, and gradually
reconciles herself to the imminent departure of Mark. A heartfelt,
provocative, masterful play. Play Albert Innaurato. The scene is a rundown, cluttered apartment in the Italian-American
section of South Philadelphia, where Berro, deserted by his southern-born
wife some ten years earlier, is preparing a family party for his
father, Oreste, who is paying his monthly visit from the nursing
home to which he has been consigned. Chaotic at the best of times,
things are thrown into even greater turmoil when Aggy, Berto's estranged
wife, suddenly turns up, shepherded by her tough-talking sister,
Sarah (who farms her own spread in North Carolina), ostensibly to
claim her personal belongings and to serve Berto with divorce papers.
During their years apart, Aggy, trying to bring some order into her
life, has earned a medical degree, but she has also lost contact
with their son, Little Tom, and she is filled with remorse when she
learns of Tom's repeated attempts at suicide during her prolonged
absence. But Tom, who has been "saved" by his grotesquely overweight,
hilariously foulmouthed wife, Francine, is not about to relieve his
mother's guilt, nor is he abashed when Renzo, Francine's randy father,
undertakes an athletic slam-bang pursuit of sister Sarah. Bursting
with vitality, and bounding from scenes of wild hilarity to moments
of deeply moving emotion, the play ultimately breaks through the
barriers which separate its varied characters and unites them in
a shared awareness that life, for all its untidiness and disorder,
is meant to be lived - joyfully, for richer of poorer, and with love
as its passionate core. Comedy. Tom Griffin. The setting is a clean but slightly threadbare apartment in a medium
sized New England city, occupied by Artie and his live-in girlfriend,
Roxanne. As the play begins, Artie and his pal Doober are rehearsing
the skit (Artie dressed as a box of ziti, Doober as vermicelli) with
which they hope to win first prize in the annual pageant put on by
the pasta manufacturer for whom Artie works. Hopefully this will
turn out better than some of Artie's other schemes - such as betting
on the horses - which have put him heavily in debt to an unseen but
sinister bookie, Ernesto Mal, whose henchman, appropriately named
Slimy, has come by to give Artie a pay-up-or-else ultimatum. Artie's
only hope of staving off a broken arm, or worse, is the stamp collection
which his grandfather left to him, and while Slimy is hardly a philatelist
he just happens to have a friend (a lady named Walter) who is. Happily
the stamps are valuable, enough so to settle Artie's debt, and as
the play ends (after allowing each of the characters an opportunity
to regale the audience with a zany recounting of his or her personal
story) Artie and Doober are back in costume, and heading off to the
pasta pageant, their customary high spirits fully restored. Comedy. Brian Jeffries Sam and Bill, two middle-aged brothers, own and run 'Cobblers',
a cafe in a seaside town. Their peace is shattered by the arrivals
of a runaway, Linda, who is after a job, and her grandmother, Connie,
who is after Linda. A terrible coincidence is revealed as Connie
is brought face-to-face with George, the husband who left her forty
years ago and who is now Sam; likewise, Connie's friend Win finds,
in Bill, her errant Arthur. |