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Charles Dyer : Comedy/Thriller In the best Hammer horror tradition, the action takes place in a
classic old dark house set amidst the rising flood waters and swirling
mists on the edge of the lonely marshes. This is Greenacres, the
home of the Barraclough family, to which come a pair of solicitors
to read the will of the late, but not greatly lamented Mr Barraclough,
only to learn that his body has mysteriously vanished along with
the will! Wanted: One Body! is a classic murder mystery of disappearing
bodies, sliding panels and howls in the night. A who-dunnit and a
thriller, but with the accent on laughter, its evergreen popularity
testifies to its warmth, wit and thrills, and the hilarious fun for
audience and actors alike. Play. Shirley Gee This powerful, moving drama is based on a true story. In 1750 Hannah
Snell, disguised as a boy, goes to sea in search of her errant husband.
For seven years she lives as a man, boldly braving wounds, bloody
battles and her own troubling visions. Back home, a woman again,
penniless, she and two fellow marines form a successful stage act.
But apocalyptic visions force her publicly to proclaim the horrors
of war and the authorities imprison her in Bedlam. Rescued, she sails
away to speak out for life. Play. N. F. Simpson An extremely witty study of a bookmaker's runner who takes a long walk off a short ship. The drowning man's cause is taken up by various charitable institutions and well-wishers, so immersed in the paraphernalia of bureaucratic machinery that they omit to rescue the 'drownee'. Playing time approximately 75 minutes Play. Philip Kan Gotanda. Nobu Matsumoto has separated from his wife Masi at her request,
though both of them are in their sixties, Nobu's new-found bachelor
life is regularly interrupted by Masi who comes by to pick up and
drop off Nobu's weekly laundry as part of the duties she still feels
a Japanese wife owes to her husband. Their two daughters have opposing
feelings about the break-up; Marsha, the more traditional of the
daughters, wants to reunite her parents, but not even Nobu and Masi's
nostalgia for their courtship in a World War II Japanese-American
internment camp can bring them back together again. The other daughter,
Judy, who's been estranged from her father since marrying a black
American, has been supportive of her mother's attempt at freedom.
It is not until Masi tentatively begins a relationship with Sadao,
a widower, that the severity of Nobu's traditional values reveals
itself: he is inconsolable, obstinate and reclusive, leaving Kiyoko,
a widowed restaurant owner who has fallen in love with him, unable
to break down his defences and get him to begin a new life with her.
Finally, Masi's decision to divorce Nobu pushes him to the point
where he begs her to return to him, but the marriage is irreparable
and Nobu is left at the end of the play contemplating how best to
re-acquaint himself with his daughters, friends, and most importantly,
his ex-wife now that he begins to perceive that things can never
again be as they were. Drama. Matthew Witten. The urban misfits who play chess in Washington Square Park have
no money and no home, but they are smart, witty, and above all, terrific
chess players. Al, a homeless ex-convict, hustles chess for a living
with his buddies, Sammy D., a young baby-faced, part-time drug dealer,
and Bobby, a Vietnam vet and Hare Krishna refugee. Their latest scheme
for achieving fame and, dignity through playing the game they love
involves a female reporter, Margie, who happens to be an, old friend
of Al's, from the old days when Al was in school and had prospects.
During the course of the play, we watch the three buddies ready for
the biggest match in front of the TV cameras. Margie's influence
has helped get the news cameras to the park and everything else seems
to be lined up. But the day of the match, the other reporters are
called away for "real" news, Sammy D. pulls off one more stupid drug
deal, and Al and Bobby lose their confidence. The world seems to
crash in around them, until the game draws them back to start to
build a new one. Play. Simon Bent A housing co-op, in North London is the setting for Simon Bent's play which seethes with the frustrations and intrigues of its eight young occupants. An affectionate but satirical eye is cast over this none-too-happy commune, from the uncooperative co-op meeting to the profounder subjects of oppressive jealousy and latent homosexuality. A series of short scenes conveys the rapidly changing tensions, moods and frustrations of this group who seem forever to be swimming against the tide. Drama. Doug Wright. Flo Stiliman is a nursery school teacher, desperate to have children
of her own. Her husband, Park, a bond trader on Wall Street, refuses
to comply. Park carries an overwhelming secret: an affair he had
with his secretary, a spirited young woman named Marilyn, already
produced a baby. The child, brain-damaged, lies in a hospital incubator,
the living manifestation of Park's infidelity to his wife. Now Park
is terrified to procreate again, for fear of producing another handicapped
infant. Flo, blissfully unaware of her husband's situation, still
craves a child. She compulsively starts to adopt Third World children
through late-night
"infomercials" on TV. Soon, she is a foster mother of some renown.
As she becomes increasingly obsessed with her responsibility to nurture
the world's underprivileged, Flo's life takes a surreal turn. She
experiences miraculous visits from Third World emissaries, and even
endures a phantom pregnancy. Meanwhile, Marilyn's new boyfriend,
Dash, a toll booth attendant with "super-human genes," decides to
pirate Marilyn and her ailing baby away to the mid-West, where they
can begin life anew. In a series of short, interconnected scenes,
alternately comic and poignant, the play weaves an intricate web
of conflicting desires. Written with the narrative logic of a late-morning
dream, Watbanaland is a haunting story about hunger in its
very human manifestations: sexual, physical and spiritual. Comedy. Philip King and Falkland L. Cary Shirley Homett and her fiancé, Albert Tufnell, have overcome
all the perils encountered in Sailor Beware! and are happily
awaiting their wedding day. The only disturbances are caused by Daphne,
Shirley's bridesmaid, who is plotting hard to trap Albert's best
man, Carnoustie, into marriage. A surprise telegram, misunderstandings
between Shirley and Albert, and Shirley's termagant mother, conspire
to ruin their happiness, but all ends happily. Drama. Lillian Hellman. The play is about an idealistic German who, with his American wife
and two children, flees Hitler's Germany and finds sanctuary with
his wife's family in the United States. He hopes for a respite from
the dangerous work in which he has been involved, but his desire
for personal safety soon comes into conflict with the deeply-held
beliefs which have made him an active anti-Nazi. In the end his conscience
cannot be compromised, and he returns to Germany and the resistance
movement - and to what will be, most certainly, his ultimate destruction.
Told in compelling, human terms, the play is an eloquent and stirring
tribute to the brave men and women who, despite all odds, struggled
early on to stem the tide of fascism which was soon to spread throughout
Europe and the world. Comedy: Norman Krasna. A rollicking comedy of true love vs. the complications of a very lucrative (but slightly shady) undercover business. A crack legal secretary working for an attorney specialising in
divorce cases, Helen is happy in her job until a personable young
man appears and offers her the chance to go to Paris as his assistant.
Unfortunately the salary is small and, debating what to do (and romantically
intrigued too), Helen suddenly finds herself asked to fill in as
a professional co-respondent - which means being photographed in
a hotel room with someone seeking to establish grounds for a divorce.
It's all very matter of fact and hands off, and it also pays very
well - with no income taxes involved, the operation being technically
illegal. So when the regular "co-respondent" announces her decision
to marry and retire, Helen agrees to take over her
"business" -and the money is soon pouring, in. But Paris, and her
now-eager suitor, cannot be put off indefinitely, and the fact that
he happens to work for the Internal Revenue Service only adds to
the complications. Eventually, and despite some hilarious misunderstandings,
it all works out: true love finds a way, and Paris it is, underpaid
but happy. Play. Norman Holland Kesiah, the gypsy, is determined to ensconce herself in the Old
Manor House, and is totally unscrupulous in her methods to achieve
this. First she contrives the housekeeper's death and takes her place.
Then she gets the sharp-eyed servant girl dismissed. Finally she
persuades the ageing, drink-shaky Mrs Sumner to make the house over
to her and away from the old woman's niece. Installed as owner, Kesiah
provides herself with a maid, but here she meets Nemesis. Period
1908 Drama. Wendy MacLeod. Megan is an actress somewhere between "ingenue" and
"Mom." When she loses an important role to a younger woman, her agent
convinces her to take a part in a commercial for Life Force, an anti-abortion
group. Megan, having had an abortion and being a staunch liberal,
is in conflict about the job. She complicates her life even more
when she begins to date Randall, the organisation's executive director.
Megan and Randall hit it off and they try to put their personal beliefs
aside, but when Randall's colleagues become militant things suddenly
become more difficult. And when Megan learns she is pregnant, it
sends her on the personal journey of her life, spinning into her
past, magnifying her present and leaving her completely at a loss
as to her future. To get away from it all she accepts a job in a
Japanese commercial. In Japan, she learns of the shrines to the mizuko
- the "water children." She makes a pilgrimage to the temple and
learns of Japan's beliefs about abortion - the very reason for the
temple's being. While at the shrine, Megan meets the soul of the
child she aborted those many years ago and finally makes her own
peace, and a decision about the child she's now carrying. N C Hunter : Light Drama The dull routine of a modest and shabby private hotel in the West Country is broken by the arrival of unexpected and exciting guests whose car breaks down nearby. Helen Lancaster, a vivacious and attractive woman, together with her husband and 18 year old daughter are well and truly snowbound. In this setting, the effect of the sophisticated newcomers on the household is both comic and tragic, as certain relationships develop and inevitable strains begin to show. William Congreve 'Congreve's The Way of the World (1700) is perhaps the subtlest
of all English comedies, the plot is as precise, and as complex,
as the inner workings of a Swiss watch ... What makes this play great,
though, is that Congreve combines this dazzling ingenuity with depth
of feeling' Daily Telegraph. Mirabell loves the heiress Millamant,
and in order to gain access to her he pretends to be in love with
her aunt, Lady Wishfort This pretence is revealed to Lady Wishfort
by Mrs Marwood, who had been spurned by Mirabell. Therefore, Mirabell
must concoct a clever plan which allows him to marry Millamant and
keep her fortune despite the vengeful wrath of Lady Wishfort ...
Recently revived by the National with Fiona Shaw, Roger Allam and
Geraldine McEwan. Play. Alan Ayckbourn What could be more pleasant than a holiday on the river? Unfortunately,
things do not go quite as smoothly as Keith, self-appointed skipper,
has anticipated. The last straw comes when Vince, hitching a ride
upstream, is elected skipper in his place. This dark comedy was presented
at the National Theatre, London, in 1982, where real water, rain
and a moving boat were used; these are not essential, however, and
the play can be produced using simulated or imagined water. Play A.R. Gurney. The scene is a motel outside of Boston - a depersonalised, antiseptic
environment into which, one after the other, come five sets of travellers.
There is a well-to-do couple on a visit to their married daughter;
a lonely salesman looking for a bit of romance to temper the boredom
of a business trip; an overbearing father and his latently rebellious
son en route to a Harvard interview; a pair of liberated college
students intent on a weekend of passion; and an embittered doctor
in the process of getting a divorce. Although the various occupants
of the motel room are often on stage at the same time, they neither
see nor hear each other, and it is quickly evident that their shared
location is, in reality, five different rooms. But, as each of the
individual dramatic situations is developed, the irony, humour and
pathos which they evoke is heightened by the silent proximity of
the other characters - building, in the end, to a kaleidoscopic pattern
in which their separate stories blend and re-blend into a subtle
but telling indictment of the shortcomings, large and small, of life
in contemporary America. Comedy-Fantasy. Paul Vincent Carroll. Canon Daniel McCooey, a potato-faced old fellow with a sheep's head of hair, has been working far too many 'miracles' for his Bishop's peace of mind. He's been talking to birds and animals, for one thing ("If only I'd studied some one besides St. Francis," mourns the unlucky parish priest), and he's somehow or other managed to get a cherry tree to produce plums. Though he isn't at all proud of himself and regards the gossip that he is a saint as a scandal, he still must be hustled out of sight. The pained Bishop deposits him in a remote country rectory that's a 'sweet little hole, but terrible out of the way,' deprives him of his beloved animals, and puts him to work knitting ecclesiastical socks. A mysterious baron with a faint odour of sulphur about him, turns up, a friendly lion strolls in at the garden window, the padre learns a few new tricks from the baron and begins to preen himself on his supernatural powers. But at eleven o'clock he's perched in a chair ten feet off the floor bemoaning the loss of his immortal representative, and when the Canon, whose pride the Devil has utilised, again doubts that he is a saint he really becomes one. Play. Charlotte Hastings Captain Anthony Cole, confined to a wheelchair, dreams of being
able to walk again and marry his beloved Chrissy. When he is informed
that he won't regain the use of his legs, he lashes out at Chrissy,
declaring that he will never marry her. Sister Winifred, who combines
professionalism as a nurse with a slightly unorthodox vocation as
a nun, saves the day, ensuring that the couple get the wedding they
have longed for. |