Play. Sam Shepard. Henry Hackamore, reputed to be the richest man in the world, is
now a bearded, aged recluse, who lives on the top floor of a Caribbean
luxury hotel, attended by his bodyguard-nurse, Raul. Paranoid, desperately
lonely and obsessed by a fear of germs, he is kept alive by drugs
and infusions of blood from other geniuses. Aware that his life is
ebbing away, and determined to have one last fling, he flies in two
women whom he had known, and loved, in the past. But while they are
still attractive and vigorous, his energies are so drained that they
can only talk of other times and other places. Entrapped by his delusions,
Hackamore is a burnt-out case, a parody of the American Dream who,
despite his limitless wealth and power, cannot forestall the inevitable
decline into futility, boredom and an agonizingly lonely death. (in Hungarian Plays) - Andres Nagy. English version by Julian
Garner This is a simple but dark love story - loosely based on the writings
and diary of the Danish philosopher Kierkegaard. It follows a young
man who sets out to prove or disprove the existence of God by embarking
upon a course of seduction. Unfortunately, he cannot live up to his
desires and gradually diminishes from a romantic hero to the tragi-comic
victim of his own intrigue. First staged 1992. Farce. Philip King The Rev. Lionel Toop's wife, Penelope, is an ex-actress. While Lionel
is away Clive, an actor, calls. He invites Penelope to dine in town
which is out of bounds to servicemen. He dresses in Lionel's blacks.
Miss Skillon, a parishioner, sees the couple repeating one of their
theatrical scenes and draws the wrong conclusion. Matters become
highly complicated when Lionel arrives, followed by the Bishop of
Lax and a German POW disguised as a vicar! Period 1947 Drama: N. Richard Nash. In a remote section of the West, Brad owns the sole gas station and store. He also owns a small zoo where he cages the occasional wildcat or whatever wildlife can be caught in the area. The cages are Brad's obsession - they remind him of mans supremacy over nature; they remind him that he is a master in this village where everybody is in debt to him. But he is not master over his daughter Janna, who has fallen in love with Brad's outspoken enemy, Dave Ricks. But if Brad's weapons are force, hatred and violence, Dave's are peace, love and gentleness. The two men battle over Wally Wilkins, an innocent boy of seventeen who was hidden away by his demented mother, and who is now free since his mother died. Because the boy is supposedly in possession of a large sum of money, Brad pursues Wally, whom Dave and Janna are escorting to safety. When Brad catches up them he realises that his pursuit of Wally has alienated him from his daughter. At the end of a night of wild drunkenness Brad imprisons Wally in a cage. To free Wally and Janna from her father's dominance, and to affirm the deeper strength of the gentle over the violent, Dave gives up his life. Peter Gordon : Comedy Seeds of Doubt is set in the garden of Alan and Claire's
suburban house. Alan attempts to tend his vegetable plot, but his
peace of mind is lumbered not only with his impending fortieth birthday,
but also because he harbours suspicions about Claire's fidelity.
The sanctity of his garden is further upset by the constant squabbles
of their next door neighbour Jill and her boyfriend Dave. When a
secret message falls into the wrong hands, a chain reaction of events
begins which takes in not only the two couples but also two other
friends, the well meaning but inept Derek, and Sarah, recently separated
from her husband. Alan's doubts are temporarily eased by a surprise
birthday party, but the party only serves to throw the other relationships
into turmoil. Events are sorted out the following day, but the seeds
of doubt have been planted and the final outcome remains anything
but certain. Self Catering (A Short History of the World) Andrew Cullen : Light Drama A plane loaded with holiday-makers crash lands on a deserted island,
somewhere en route to Majorca. The five survivors are forced not
only to come to terms with the disaster, but also deal with the prospects
of survival in an unforgiving atmosphere. The characters, an ill-
ssorted lot, adopt the names of their favourite film stars, and gradually
the personas of Henry (Fonda), Clint, Meryl, Bette and Marilyn begin
to take over. The play, a modern day parable of The Lord of the
Flies, explores the range of human behaviour as this society
in miniature gradually disintegrates, leaving little except quotations
from films as a means of communication and survival. Farcical Comedy. David Turner The characters are not naturalistic portraits but rather caricatures
of contemporary types. As in the older comedies their names suggest
their identities (Midway, Makepiece, Freeman, etc.). The model Midland
householder, Fred Midway, sedulously climbing the business and social
ladders, self-educated by correspondence courses, with his material
yardstick, his oratory, self-knowledge and pathetic faith in himself,
provides a brilliant centre to a highly entertaining and satirical
play. Andrew Rosenthal : Drama After fleeing from the tragic circumstances surrounding her husbands' death, Irene Carey decides to come back to her home in England following an absence of five very lonely and unsettled years. Back in the care of her two most treasured friends she is reunited with Sally, the daughter she left behind, and tries to pick up the pieces of her life to start anew. Irene is soon made aware that the past events have not ceased to haunt her family and friends, and she blames herself for the destruction of so many lives, including her own. Upon the revelation of a horrific truth, Irene realises that she has been deceived and the pain and suffering she has endured could have been avoided. With the anger and bitterness she now encounters, she must make the most important decision of her life. Drama. Lanford Wilson. Schuyler Browne and his friends, josh, Ann, and Mary, gather for
the spring at Schuyler's family's Hampton home. Schuyler, a trust-fund
kid from wealthy lineage, doesn't yet know what to do with his life.
Josh, very into computers, is on the verge of making millions on
a stock market deal done over the Internet. Ann, a would-be dancer,
is turned down for a grant and is fearful of becoming a blue collar
worker. Mary is a business manager about to open her own company,
and the one to open the group to a new member, Chuck, a local carpenter
working for her. As the spring passes, the friends begin to clash
as all their problems and futures grow. Growing more neurotic, Ann
spends her time cooking even as she continues her work in a nearby
shop. Tempers fly when Schuyler insults Chuck, and Mary and Josh
in turn chide Schuyler for being a snob. More time passes, and Josh,
with some of his new money, makes a large contribution to the director
of a dance troupe hoping Ann can have a featured role, but his kindness
backfires when she is fired on opening night. Schuyler's feud with
Chuck fizzles, but Schuyler's father informs them all they may no
longer live in the house since, come September, he has rented it
out. When the time comes to leave, the friends vow to hang onto their
meager livings and to their family of friends, but no one really
knows how. Schuyler wants to hurt his father and announces his intention
to open a restaurant with Ann as the cook, but it is Josh who. rescues
the group, with his vow to spend millions on a new house, where they
all can, again, be together. Two plays. Terence Rattigan The typical South Coast Hotel Beauregarde is peopled by the old,
the lonely and the indigent. The manageress, Miss Cooper, is unable
to remain aloof from their troubles. In Table No. 1 she attempts
to help John Malcolm and his ex-wife Ann, who have ruined each other,
find salvation together. In Table No. 2 Major Pollock and
Miss Railton-Bell are misfits and their despair draws them together.
Miss Cooper gives them the courage to face life. Play. Tom Kempinski Joe Green is a fat, unsociable, unproductive, phobia-ridden writer
whose one hit play is the subject of a transatlantic phone call from
a New York actress, suffering from a paralysing disease, who wants
to perform it. They become friends over the phone but when she arrives
in London Joe's neurotic terrors almost, but not quite, kill the
love affair completely. Funny, tender and completely captivating,
the play was seen at Hampstead and the Comedy Theatres with David
Suchet and Saskia Reeves. Play. John Godber This play, together with its companion, Happy Jack, is described by the author as 'autobiographical, but not in the strict sense. Both plays are about my grandparents and chronicle their lives. All the incidents are based on fact - they were the myths of my childhood.' Their marriage is explored with great pathos and humour and ' ... transmitted with a directness that touches the heart ...' Guardian Play. Daphne du Maurier. Revised version by Mark Rayment In a Cornish house lives the widowed Stella, a woman of considerable
gifts and beauty who regularly rejects proposals of marriage from
her neighbour Robert Hanson. Cherry, Stella's daughter, brings home
her artist husband Evan for the first time and Stella is shocked
by the bohemian incompleteness of their marriage. She finds herself
attracted to Evan and soon they are passionately in love: although
much is left unspoken, Evan eventually compels Stella to admit her
feelings. Period 1950s Play. Lanford Wilson. Two young suburban couples, friends of long standing, are suddenly
aware of strains and pressures that have inexorably come into their
lives. Adultery is one of these - a fact for one of the wives, an
imminent possibility for one of the husbands - but ambitions, frustrated
and potential, and a crying out for more meaningful personal involvement
within their marriages are others. As they come together to examine
their plight and to probe the genesis of their unhappiness the play
moves deftly in and out of the frame of reality-with the characters
talking sometimes to each other and sometimes directly to the audience.
Ultimately, out of the fascinating mosaic of conversations, confessions,
and reminiscences, a sense of deeper understanding begins to emerge,
and, with it, the liberating knowledge of the loneliness which must
exist within marriage and of the crucial commitment which individuals
must make if they are truly and effectively to share their lives
with others. City comedy. Caryl Churchill. Songs by Ian Dury, Micky Gallacher
and Chas Jankel Set post-Big Bang 1980s in the Square Mile, the action centres on
a take-over bid led by the ruthless Billy Corman. When cartel member
Jake Todd dies amidst the amassing of a fortune, his sister, Scilla,
investigates his murder, initially from curiosity but later from
greed. Churchill's witty dialogue is complemented by two songs with
bawdily, satirical lyrics by Ian Dury. NB. This play contains explicit
language. Play. Jean-Claude van Itallie. While most of the work is choreographed movement, pantomime, human
sounds and music made by bells, horns, whistles, tambourines and
other hand-held instruments, there is an accompanying text from the
Bible and a number of speeches with contemporary sentiments. From
the beginning, man searches for happiness, for self-realisation and
union with other men, seems to be the underlying theme. He is thwarted
by violence, both from within himself and from other men. Eve is
tempted by the serpent in the Garden of Eden, yields, eats the forbidden
apple, tempts Adam to eat, too - and man's eternal battle begins
between self-gratification and obedience to external authority. There
is a ritual enactment of the discovery of sexual love played by the
group against the intoned recital of how the descendants of Adam
begat the family of man that leaves little to the imagination. It
is a passionate celebration of love. Passion gives way to maternal
tenderness and the celebrants grow into doddering senility. They
sink slowly to the floor and collapse into sleep. A hum starts and
becomes a group song. `We were sailing along on moonlight bay...,'
they sing, rising and moving into the aisles and up the stairs. They're
smiling and their looks of love embrace the audience. They finish
singing and stand there. The ceremony is completed. Comedy. Adapted by David Turner and Paul Lapworth from the original
by Carlo Goldoni Goldoni skilfully adapted the commedia dell'arte pattern
to his own very funny plots, and the most famous is this play wherein
the story concerns the terrible complications wrought by Truffaldino
when he gets himself engaged as a servant by two different people
at the same time. The plot sparkles with invention and this adaptation
in the modern idiom brilliantly matches the spirit of the play. Farce. Natalie E. White. When it snows on a May Day in Indiana, Sister Columba, an elderly
rheumatic nun, asks St. Joseph to take her where the weather is warm.
St. Joseph takes her, the convent, and six other nuns who happen
to be in the convent at that moment, to the warm. sands of Nevada
- just outside of Las Vegas. Las Vegas is a shock to the nuns and
to St. Joseph - and the nuns and St. Joseph have a startling efect
on Las Vegas. This bustling resort town gives up gambling and takes
up contemplation; the Bible becomes a best seller; a mission priest
is the rage of the nightclub crowd; three dancing girls from the
Silver Dollar, Peaches, Boots, and Baby, decide to take the veil.
BUT the nuns have their problems too. There is real estate difficulty;
they own the convent, but not the ground; the younger nuns thumb
rides to town; Peaches, Boots and Baby teach one of the sisters a
dance routine; and finally the sister in charge finds herself offering
to "place a small bet." St. Joseph and the nuns realise they had
better go home, so St, Joseph returns the convent and its occupants
to Indiana - the occupants at the moment including the proprietor
of the Silver Dollar and the Board of Directors of the Amalgamated
Night Clubs. "While the play is a farce, the nuns are not farcical
characters, nor are they characters of saccharine pietistic tendencies.
They are rather the ordinary, gracious, efficient American nuns. Seven Nuns South of the Border Farce. Natalie E. White. A sequel to Seven Nuns at Las Vegas. Sister Columban asks St. Joseph to help her return a large picture
of Our Lady of Guadalupe to Mexico for the Feast of Guadalupe, and
he does. He takes her and the picture and the convent and six other
nuns to Concepcion, Mexico, where, during the colourful fiesta which
includes hymns to Our Lady and fireworks, the picture is returned
to the townspeople. Comedy. Edith Ellis. The Widow Gyurkovics is having trouble finding matrimonial catches for Katinka, Sari and Ella, the older of her seven daughters. Her problem is complicated by the fact that she is bound to the custom of marrying off her daughters in the order of their ages. Mitzi, the fourth daughter, aged 19, is the despair of her mother. Expelled from school for running away to attend a masque ball in the city, she returns home in disgrace. In order to advance her sisters' chances, she is promptly reduced to the age of 15, and compelled to dress and behave as such. Then Feri Horkoy, a dashing lieutenant she met at the ball, crosses her path. She reveals her plight and he wagers that within a year he will see that her older sisters are married off and Mitzi freed from the "nursery." But he makes a condition that when that happens he shall be rewarded by three kisses. They resort to hilarious intrigues in their plot to ensnare husbands for Katinka, Sari and Ella. But in promoting her sisters' happiness, Mitzi's own romance is threatened, but matters adjust themselves and at the fall of the curtain Horkoy reappears, and claims his reward. Play. Ernest Pendrell. A compelling drama which tells, with humanity and humour, how "big" most "little" people
really are. The play deals with the problems of a factory worker
who dreams of becoming a "cop," of replacing the drudgery of the
machine shop with the thrill of riding along on a motorcycle. But
there are family responsibilities to meet, and the problems of prejudice
to be dealt with - which they are, in a most heart-warming and honest
way. George Axelrod : Comedy After seven years of marriage, the wife of Richard, a mild mannered
publisher's assistant, has taken off to the country for the Summer,
leaving Richard alone to contemplate his fate. When a flowerpot falls
off a balcony and nearly kills him, Richard decides to live life
to the fullest while he can. He takes up smoking and drinking, and
invites the woman who lives on the floor above down for an evening
of seduction. But this latter day casanova has, in addition to a
nervous disposition, a conscience - which quite literally follows
him around the apartment. What follows is a soul struggle of heroic
and hilarious proportions in one of the comedy classics. (also known as Six of One). Play. Michael Pertwee Roger has invited Philip and his wife for a cruise on his luxury
yacht-together with Denys, his employee, and his wife - in order
to see whether Denys proves suitable for an important job abroad.
Complications start, however, with the arrival of Roger's estranged
wife Lisa. Then the philandering Philip turns up with his latest
mistress instead of his wife. Soon every conceivable combination
of twice three has been achieved before the final hilarious climax
erupts. |