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Play. Bryan Stocks Actor Victor Kendrew returns to his Bahamian home from his honeymoon with his young bride Ida, who is rumoured to have left behind an unhappy love affair. Actor Peter Barlow arrives, and it transpires that he is the lover Ida left behind. They both leave together for Hollywood, where Peter's screen test is such a success that he is destined to take the place of fading idol Victor, who has played 'hard to get' once too often. The Vietnamization Of New Jersey Comedy/Drama. Christopher Durang. A comic and biting satire of post-Vietnam America. The scene is a middle-class home in Piscataway, New Jersey, where
Ozzie Ann (the mother) and Harry (the father) await the return of
their Vietnam veteran son, David, and his native bride, Liat. Also
on hand are younger brother Et, a sex-obsessed high school junior
who eats cornflakes from his unzipped pants; and Hazel, the irrepressible
black maid (portrayed by a male performer) who is the real power
in the household. When David and Liat arrive they are both blind
(which he demonstrates by walking into the refrigerator) and she
is an ex-hooker (who later turns out to be a displaced orphan named
Maureen O'Hara). Thereafter come suicide, adultery, the feeble intervention
of a homosexual priest, and the arrival of a super-patriotic, war-mongering
uncle - plus a staccato of outrageous comments by the cynical Hazel.
The final result is a scathing, irreverent indictment of the worst
aspects of the American character, made real by the incisiveness
of the author's writing; yet hilarious by the wild originality of
his vision.
Play. Tennessee Williams This is an autobiographical portrait of Williams as he recalls, with pain, compassion and wry humour, a sojourn in the French Quarter of New Orleans during 1938. We see a tubercular, homosexual painter, a New York fashion illustrator now suffering from leukaemia, two elderly gentlewomen starving politely, and dominating Mrs Wire, the sentimental and cruel, comically desperate landlady. The place is a morning house in the
French Quarter of New Orleans, the time the late '30s. As narrated
by The Writer, a young man recently arrived from st. Louis, the action
is concerned with interlocking lives of the various residents: a
tubercular, homosexual painter; a doomed young girl and har coarse
lover, two aging "ladies" living in near poverty; and the
eccentric irrepressible landlady, who veers from cruelty to sentiment
in her treatment of her charges. Filled with evocative memories,
and sharply etched portraits of its singular characters, the play
centres first on The Writer, and his seduction by The Painter; and
then probes into the fateful love of the young girl for her stud
- she dying of leukemia, and he torn between his debt to her and
his urge to escape the consequences of her condition. It is a play
of echoes and remem brances, a series of engrossing scenes, sometimes
brutally candid sometimes delicately poetic, which are woven together
into a rich and revealing tapestry, glinting with theatricality and
throbbing with the Drama: Arthur Miller. Originally produced on Broadway as a long one-act. 12 men, 3 women., Interior The central character is a longshoreman who, though his mind is
limited and he cannot find words for his thoughts, is an admirable
man. When two of his wife's Italian cousins - submarines they are,
in the waterfront argot - are smuggled into this country, he makes
room for them in his home. Gratefully they move in among his wife,
his children and the teen-age niece whom he has brought up and whom
he has come to love, he thinks, as a daughter. And now the stage
is set for tragedy. One of the illegal immigrants has a family in
Italy for whom he is working; the other young, extraordinarily handsome,
and exceedingly blonde, is single. He wants to become an American,
and he falls in love with his benefactor's niece. If he marries the
girl he will no longer have to hide from immigration officials. A
monstrous change creeps up on the kind and loving uncle. He is violently
opposed to this romance and is not intelligent enough to realise
that this opposition is not motivated, as he thinks, by a dislike
of the boy and a suspicion that he is too pretty to be a man, but
by his own too intense love for his niece. Not even the wise and
kindly neighbourhood lawyer can persuade him to let the girl go.
This is an intensely absorbing drama, sure of itself every step of
the way. It makes no false moves, wastes no time and has the beauty
that comes from directness and simplicity. Play. Peter Tinniswood Nancy is at the helm of the unhappy Empson family who, for the sake
of Father's health, move to a small country village. Their new house
is in a state of disrepair, but they find that a local handyman,
Winston, is keen to help them out. He breaks their resistance to
him with his irreverent wit, gourmet cooking, free repairs and liberal
doses of sexual advice. Gradually the family are transformed by his
presence. Play. Caryl Churchill Written for Monstrous Regiment in 1976 and first presented at the Humberside Theatre, Hull, this is a history play with a difference. Set loosely in the seventeenth century, it charts the persecution of women in the name of witchcraft showing how fear of female sexuality is one of the major forces behind the witch hunts - and in its 'modern' songs challenges the audience to examine its own attitudes to women and sexuality. Virtue Triumphant, or, Her Honour in Peril Comedy melodrama. Pat Norris A full-blooded melodrama complete with wicked Squire, handsome hero,
beautiful heroine, comic rustics, flirtatious matron, susceptible
vicar and other staple ingredients. Thrilling adventures include
a last-minute rescue, a chase, and a plethora of vengeful ghosts.
The basis of the main plot is the Squire's lust for the lovely Rose
and his determination to possess her by hook or by crook. Play. Bertolt Brecht Simone, a teenage girl working as a hostelry servant, spends her time reading about Joan of Arc. The period is 1940 and the Germans are advancing towards the French town. In a series of dreams or visions she sees herself as Joan leading a Resistance movement against the enemy. When she attempts to turn her visions into reality her employers commit her to a mental asylum. However, in the last few lines of the play it appears that she has encouraged others in the town to take action. Drama. Friedrich Durrenmatt. Adapted by Maurice Valency Claire Zachanassian, the richest woman in the world, returns to
her poverty-stricken home town. The townspeople are ready to grovel
for favours and select as their representative Anton Schell, for
Claire and Anton had once been deeply in love. Claire arrives with
a sinister menage. She soon announces that she has come for revenge
on her onetime sweetheart, offering a million marks for his life.
In the nightmarish climax Schell's corrupted friends sacrifice him
to their greed. Comedy. Gore Vidal. Ritchard comes from another planet to do a bit of sightseeing and
to see or start a war. He thinks he has arrived in time to see the
Civil War, which he expects will be jolly, but he has misjudged his
landing and gets here in 1957. He tries to make the best of it. "Isn't
hydrogen fun?"
he gurgles, as he hears about modern warfare. Where he comes from,
civilization has gone way beyond what we have here. They don't have
babies any more, for instance, and he explains to us earthlings, "We
gave it up. Sometimes I think we were a bit hasty." This interplanetary
visitor, who can read human minds and even have an enchanting conversation
with a Siamese cat, plops himself into an average community whose
population includes an average general, an average boy and girl in
love, an average TV newscaster or oracle and an above-average cat.
Since he has missed the Civil War, the visitor from outer space (not
from Mars, he insists) decides to make his own war - he's enchanted
with all the new playthings the 20th Century has invented for war-making,
and he wants to toss a few of them around. Since on his planet emotions
withered away to make room for intellectual development, he sees
no reason why a few people shouldn't be happy to die for his amusement.
It takes the combined action of the entire cast to persuade him to
call off his war. Play. Richard Harris Six inter-linked plays set in a National Health hospital during
visiting hour. Alternately funny and sad - with elements of tragedy
and comedy in each - your audience will be reaching for the Kleenex
one minute and rolling in the aisles the next! '... packed with sharp
lines and cruel characterisation ... It hurts to laugh but laugh
we do ... for those who like their comedy black there is much to
enjoy.' Daily Telegraph Jeff Baron. Comedy/Drama. Mr. Green, an elderly, retired dry cleaner wanders into traffic
on New York's Upper West Side and is almost hit by a car driven by
Ross Gardiner, a 29-year-old corporate executive. The young man is
charged with reckless driving, and is given a community service sentence
of helping Mr. Green once a week for six months. The old man's wife
has just died, he lives in a fourth floor walk-up, and he needs help
with groceries and such. The play follows the two men's growing and
changing relationship over several months beginning with the first
of these weekly visits. What starts out as a comedy about two men
who do not want to be in the same room together, turns into a gripping
and moving drama as they get to know each other, come to care about
each other, and open old wounds they've been hiding and nursing for
years. Play. Eileen Atkins, adapted from the correspondence between Virginia
Woolf and Vita Sackville-West Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West first met in 1922. Through
the course of the next twenty years, until Virginia's suicide in
1941, the extraordinary relationship between them was charted in
their letters to one another, providing a remarkable insight into
their love affair. Eileen Atkins has made a supremely skilful dramatisation
of their correspondence in which they speak of everyday life, friends,
literature and, above all, themselves. Play. Robert Bolt The play follows the relationship between Mary, Queen of Scots and
Elizabeth I, from shortly before the former's return to Scotland,
through her marriage to Darnley, Rizzio's death, the scandal over
Bothwell, Mary's imprisonment, Catholic plots, until her execution,
closing as Spain's Armada is in active preparation. Play formerly titled The Other Half : Elinor Jones. Covering a broad spectrum from Sappho to writers of the present
day, the play points up not only the triumphs of women in literature,
but also the discouragement, derision and disbelief to which they
were too often subjected. Spanning 26 centuries, the play evokes
the words and feelings of women who were frequently obliged to hide
behind anonymity or male names in order to practice their art, and
from whom fantastic strength of character and indomitability were
required. That they succeeded so brilliantly in their efforts is
not only a tribute to these talented women in particular but, in
a more general sense, to the irrepressible spirit of the entire "other
half" of humanity, whose voice would not be denied. Comedy. John van Druten. Although the plot is contrived with the artful ingenuity which is
to be expected in any van Druten play, the interest here centers
largely upon a most attractive and charming young man and an equally
attractive young woman who, by gradual stages, fall in love with
each other. Drama. Joe Sutton. A prominent black man is arrested for buying crack. His lawyer says
he was framed, set up by a racist white cop. It is left to a jury
of six (as is the case in misdemeanors and many civil cases in New
York State), a racially mixed group of five women and one man, to
decide who is telling the truth. This they do over three brutal,
often explosive days of harrowing deliberation, as we take a peek
behind the one door that will always remain closed to us - the door
to the jury room. Ben Jonson Volpone is a Venetian aristocrat, a lovable rogue who enjoys the
cunning pursuit of his wealth more than the money itself. Pretending
to be mortally ill, he watches as his greedy neighbours swarm around
him with expensive gifts in an attempt to inherit his fortune. 'There
can be few comedies as harsh yet as enthralling in their depicition
of greed and deceit as Ben Jonson's Volpone ... Actors let
rip on the playwright's uncompromising, blackly comic vision of humanity's
darkest side' Evening Standard. Michael Gambon played the
irrepressible Volpone in the National's recent revival. First performed
in 1606. Play. John Mortimer The author traces his life from the point of view of his relationship
with his father. Near the start of the action the latter is blinded
by an accident and the play ends with his death. The story is presented
with humour, affection and, finally, deep pathos. The setting is
a bare stage, with properties brought on and off by cast or stage
management, and changes of milieu indicated, where necessary, by
alterations in the lighting. |