Archives - July 2000
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Archives - July 2000 |
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Produced by Mary Frost
THE PLAY
Comedy, various sets. Five interlinked one-act plays: "Mother Figure", "Drinking Companion", "Between Mouthfuls", Gosforth's Fete" and "A Talk In The Park".
Lucy, alone with her children, shuns contact with the
outside world and has been refusing to answer the phone. When her salesman
husband Harry asks the neighbours to drop by to see if she is all right, she
treats them as small children and sends them away...
Meanwhile Harry gives up trying to phone her and drunkenly tries to chat up two
girls, who can't wait to get away, in his hotel bar...
Elsewhere in the hotel, Martin and Polly arrive at the restaurant to discover Donald - Martin's boss - and his wife Emma are there too. While Martin talks to Polly about work, Emma accuses Donald of having an affair. He denies it, while Polly tells Martin she has been having an affair with Donald. Both women leave and the men, Martin apparently without shame, goes for a drink with Donald...
Emma is then opening a village fete, organised by Gosforth, tat is an unmitigated disaster from start to finish...
And finally, five people in a park talk pointlessly about themselves, while none of them listen.
FROM THE GROUP
I
had tried to produce this some years previously but had run into casting
difficulties. Now I was able to muster sufficient people to stage this series of
five vaguely connected Alan Ayckbourn playlets. As with most Ayckbourn whilst
full of laughs, there is something thought provoking and recognisable about his
characters.
The first featured a young mother so cut off from adult company she has lost
touch with how to function with grownups and treats them all as children. We
then go on to her salesman husband unsuccessfully trying to chat up the girls
whilst away from home. Thirdly, an excruciating scene in the hotel dining room.
This was particularly difficult as not only did it involve two separate
simultaneous conversations but they had to be accomplished whilst eating dinner.
A young neglected wife and her career obsessed husband are on one side of the
stage whilst on the other is an irrascible boss and his angry wife. The fourth
play is a real riot as we drop in on a village fete that ends in absolute chaos
as tea urns overflow, platforms collapse, boy scouts and marching bands run riot
and shocking secrets are broadcast to the world over the tannoy. To round off
the evening 'A Walk in the Park' features five park benches upon which sit
people wrapped up in their own problems. Although verbally they are
communicating they are not listening to each other and their are no real
connections made.
So the audience are sent off with plenty to think about. Some of the players
were required to play two or three different parts but they coped with their
usual aplomb. Difficult to stage as five different settings were needed, but our
redoubtable crew managed to make the whole thing appear easy as they worked
their socks off.
Mary - Producer
Press Photo - Some of the cast, in "Gosforth's Fete":
John Maplesden (Vicar), Cheree Brooks (Milly), Bob Wakelin (Gosforth), Ann
Burfoot (Mrs Pearce) and Dave Holden (Stewart)
PREVIEWS & REVIEWS
Previews from the Worthing Herald, July 2000
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