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Comedy. Tom Stoppard, from an original play by Ferenc Molnar This hilarious play, freely adapted from Molnar's classic farce Játék a Kastélyban. was seen at the National Theatre in 1984 starring Michael Kitchen, John Standing and Sheila Gish. Two playwrights and collaborators, the composer and most of the cast of a musical comedy destined for Broadway are trying to finish and rehearse the play while crossing from Southampton via Cherbourg, to New York. With music by André Previn, Tom Stoppard wittily parodies thirties' musicals. Play. Terence Frisby James Highwood is on the stand for the murder of his severely handicapped
child. He refuses his solicitor's plea to obtain legal representation,
and conducts his own defence, admitting responsibility but pleading
manslaughter. The battle to have his intentions understood brings
him into conflict with the Prosecutor, Margaret Casely, QC, a well-known
Catholic and pro-lifer. Then there's the question of whether Highwood
killed his child after all ... (in Spanish Plays) - Lluisa Cunillé, Trans. O.Cebballos & M.
Peate A fascinating study of everyday mania, obsession and delusion, conversations
left unfinished and people incapable of change. Premiered at the
Royal Court, 1998. Roundheads and Peakheads (Rich and Rich) Play. Bertolt Brecht This play is described by the author as a 'horror tale' in blank verse. Though the basic plot loosely follows that of Shakespeare's Measure For Measure, the play in fact is an allegory of the rise of Hitler (Angelo Iberin), a Roundhead who is appointed temporary ruler when the Regent leaves the country. Towards the end of the play the Regent returns and tells Angelo to prepare for war against a threatening distant country; the people are subdued and the revolutionaries executed. Period 1930s Aphra Behn Arriving in Naples at Carnival time, a group of exiled Spanish cavaliers
determine to enjoy themselves. They are repeatedly tempted and tricked
by various prostitutes and their pimps,; until their leader, 'The
Rover', is finally forced to give up his wild behaviour when he falls
in love with a single-minded, wealthy virgin. Written in 1677 this
classic comedy is by England's first woman playwright. Comedy Luis Santeiro. Hilda, an illegal immigrant from Honduras, finds work cleaning for
retired history teacher, Edna, a serious person with a big heart.
Hilda misses her children and works hard to earn enough money to
send them things: high profile shoes, electronics, etc., all essentials
in the ever-popular world of status. How will her neighbours know
she is good to her children if they don't receive these things? Hilda
seeks escape in her fantasies of one day meeting royalty, and even
perhaps serving tea to Queen Elizabeth. Hilda diligently reads Hola! magazine
to keep up with the goings on with royal families around the world.
Her fantasies escalate, until Rene, Edna's gardener who has fallen
in love with Hilda, puts her in touch with Luz, a medium (in love
with Rene) who can help. Hilda meet her royals. With Luz's help,
Hilda calls upon Marie Antoinette and her lover, Axel Fersen, who
appear and take over the lives of Hilda, Edna and Rene. The problems
that arise with royalty in the house add to the confusion and the
hilarity as Hilda must make a decision about what to do with her
life. She must decide whether to stay in the U.S. and marry Rene
or else be deported, since Luz, hoping to win Rene back, has reported
Hilda, Antoinette and Axel to the immigration authorities, or to
go back home on her own after receiving word that her children are
acting like "adults" - the kind she does not want them to imitate.
In the end, Hilda's experience with royalty, fantasy and love help
her decide to go back home on her own to be loved by those for whom
she wanted so much. After living with Hilda, Edna makes new strides
to enjoy her life, and Rene finds he is re-attracted to Luz, who
is ready and waiting. Play. Royce Ryton Based on the book by Michael Havers and Edward Grayson, and first
seen at Chichester and subsequently at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket,
London, in 1989, the play dramatises the Victorian scandal of 1890
in which Sir William Gordon Cumming, a baronet and personal friend
of the Prince of Wales, was accused by his mistress's husband of
cheating at baccarat. Play. Peter Shaffer This is the story of the conquest of Peru, the defeat by 167 men of a highly organised, communistic empire of over ten million people. It is also the story of two men, Francisco Pizarro, the embittered, defiant commander of the invading Spanish forces, and Atahuallpa, the young king, Sun god-upon-earth, ruler of a vast empire. Between the two, both illegitimate usurpers, there grows a deep and understanding friendship. ISBN 0 573 01388 8 The Royal Pardon, or The Soldier Who Became an Actor Play. John Arden and Margaretta D' Arcy A company of strolling players hounded out of a village by a zealous constable is joined by a vagrant soldier, also on the run. When the company is selected by the King of England to perform at the French Court their performance is almost sabotaged by the jealous French actors and the constable. But the soldier's performance is so brilliant that the company wins the French King's prize while the constable is turned to stone. Play. Joe Orton One day a strange man appears asking for a room. He begins taunting the woman and comes close to viciousness. The next day he returns, but this time Mike is there too. We can now piece things together- Mike has killed the homosexual lover and brother of Wilson. So Wilson pretends to ravish Joyce and forces Mike to shoot him - 'The heart is situated just below this badge on my pullover. Don't miss, will you?' (in This Lime Tree Bower) - Conor McPherson A young Irishman with a drink problem tells of three momentous days
in his life when his drab nine-to-five existence is obliterated in
an escapist binge which threatens to engulf him. By the multi-award-winning
author of The Weir. Farce. Neil Simon Ken and Chris have found their host Charley, a prominent Government
official, in his bedroom, too dazed to speak, with a bullet wound
in his ear lobe! Len and Claire arrive, themselves injured in a car
crash, and are soon joined by Ernest and Cookie, Glenn and Cassie,
each with their own problems. A second, accidental, gunshot leaves
Ken temporarily deaf, the police arrive and Len has to pretend he
is Charley, concocting a touching and fantastic explanation ... Play. Norman Robbins In this adaptation of the Grimms' story some children are discovered
playing 'Ladder-words', a word game to change one word to another.
Gretel says she can change 'flax' into 'gold'. The King hears this,
mistakes it for an actual boast and orders Gretel to work the change.
The gnome, Rumpelstiltzkin, offers to help her-at a price. The play
then follows the story of the gnome's defeat by the guessing of his
secret name. Comedy. Ray Cooney John Smith is a London cabbie with his own taxi, a wife in Streatham,
a wife in Wimbledon and a knife-edge schedule! He has been a successful,
if tired, bigamist for three years, but one day he is taken to hospital
with mild concussion. In the ensuing complications, aided by an unwilling
Stanley, John tries bravely to cope with a succession of well-meaning
but prying policemen, two increasingly irate wives, and others, until
he manfully confesses the truth. Play. Milan Stitt. 5 men, 4 women. Unit Set A young nun has died under mysterious circumstances in a remote
parish in northern Michigan, and her superior, Father Rivard, has
been charged with her murder. The action alternates between interrogations,
testimony, and scenes from the past which reveal that Father Rivard,
who had been banished to the small, up-country parish, fell in love
with Sister Rita and when circumstances forced her to move into the
rectory with him his anguish became unbearable. Their relationship,
inevitably, spelt tragedy, but not until the explosive, and surprising,
climax of the play is the full extent of their sacrifice made clear,
and the identity of the murderer revealed. Play. Jack Heifner. 3 men, 2 women. Interior As the play begins, Lilly is pondering which of her designer dresses
to burn in the fireplace of her chic if sparsely furnished penthouse
apartment. The problem is that it is wintertime, the United States
has long since used up its fuel reserves, and if Lilly and her husband
Stephen are to keep warm there is no alternative. Down in the streets
below people are fighting birds, for berries, cutting down trees
in the parks for fuel, and waiting in endless lines for meager government
food handouts. Lilly and Stephen are also preparing for a party,
albeit one in which both food and drink will be imagined rather than
real. The guest of honor is to be their old friend, David, with whom
both once had romantic involvement. When David arrives he is accompanied
by his latest conquests, Chloe (a flower child) and Jonathan (a committed
Catholic), who, like their predecessors, are competing for David's
amoral favors. As the pretend party progresses the antic mood of
the play grows increasingly more probing and serious, as questions
are raised about the barren platonic relationship which Lilly and
Stephen have settled for; David's continued failure to commit himself,
sexually or otherwise; and Chloe and Jonathan's obsession with the
evils of materialism (her) and gnawing personal guilt (him). In the
end human frailty is pitilessly excoriated but, at the same time,
hopes are raised that the bitter lessons of the past, and present,
will somehow be heeded, and that mankind may yet bring some semblance
of order to the chaos and misfortune which his baser instincts have
engendered. Farce. Derek Benfield Humphrey Podmore, mistaken for the British champion runner at the
Olympic Games, is accepted as such by a surprising number of people
including a beautiful Russian spy and the fearsome woman trainer.
When the real champion turns up he is locked in a cellar by a punter
who has placed a bet believing that Humphrey will represent England
- needless to say he walks away with the race. Comedy. Charlie Varon. : Right-wing radio personality Rush Limbaugh seems unstoppable. His
daily audience has risen to 6 million listeners, or 1 percent of
the world's population. But Rush's manager, the fictional Barry Granatour,
has disturbing news: Limbaugh faces a serious ratings battle with
radio rival J. Neil Rodriguez, a Latino commentator. Granatour suggests
Spanish lessons. Donning pseudonym and disguise, Rush attends language
classes at the New School for Social Research in Greenwich Village,
New York City. There he encounters, in the flesh, all the people
he has enjoyed mocking on the air: feminists, leftists, environmentalists.
And there he also meets Nina Eggly, a fellow middle-aged student
who awakens Rush's dormant romantic urges. Mutual passion flares.
What Rush doesn't know is that Nina is really a former Weather Undergrounder,
long since chased into hiding by the FBI. There is a Byzantine web
of additional plotlines, including a New York Shakespeare Festival
production in which Limbaugh is cast as Othello opposite Garrison
Keillor's lago and Jackie Mason's Roderigo, all under the direction
of Spalding Gray. The play, framed as a public television documentary,
is studded with political and social satire and builds to a wildly
farcical conclusion. Play. Githa Sowerby Written in 1912 during the upsurge of the British feminist movement, this powerful play deals with the oppressive patriarchal system of the industrial North at that time. Rutherford is the hard tyrannical master of both his glassworks and his family who attacks, degrades and rejects each of his children in turn. To his daughter Janet, her banishment is a release, and she forcefully condemns her father and his values. |