Past Productions
'Night, Mother by Marsha Norman One evening, Jessie calmly announces to her mother that she is going to kill herself. At first her mother refuses to take her seriously, but as Jessie sets about tidying the house and making lists of things to be looked after, her sense of desperate helplessness begins to build. In the end, with the inexorability of genuine tragedy, she can only stand by, stunned and unbelieving as Jessie quietly closes and locks her bedroom door and ends her unhappiness in one fatal, stunning and deeply disturbing moment. 'Beautiful and chilling' **** 3 weeks '...a shattering evening' New York Times The Carpenter by Teresa Zoers That morning, Annie woke up in a new world. Climbing down the stairs to her grandfather's cellar, Annie's chidhood memories are rekindled in images of fairies and soldiers, a childhood that will soon conflict with the knowdlege of herself as a woman and her new interests in her grandfather's lodger. As Annie struggles to understand her self, her new desires are put to the test by her grandfather's inability to remember his own identity and the knowledge of a past that once was his life's ambition. 'A moving and heartwarming tale of lost identity.' Concrete Sittin' Out There by Katherine Orr One day, after arguing with her director about wearing her thong, she gets a letter from an old boyfriend asking her to come to a one off occasion -- his execution. In a brilliantly witty string of events, this short piece shows how one woman realises the importance of those little moments in life and starts a new business venture to explain just that. All she knows is what she wants to say -- and that she has to say it naked. 'Charming, witty, unique and a great example of how to have fun in the theatre.' Concrete 'A wonderfully strong new voice.' Rabbit
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True West by Sam Shepard The play is about two brothers: Austin is an ambitious Hollywood screenwriter working on a potential milion dollar deal when an ill wind off the desert blows in Lee, a hobo thief with a six pack and a case of sibling rivalry. The conflict arises when a film producer asks Lee to write a "true" Western. In a role reversal as intricate as it is riveting, the brothers, surrounded by empty bottles, seven toasters and lots of toast, head toward Shepard's outrageous version of the Western movie showdown. 'A mythic study of fraternal division.' Guardian The most exciting and idiosyncratic of all contemporary American dramatists.' Observer
Tea Party by Harold Pinter Disson, a self-made business man engages a young secretary, marries a beautiful young second wife, and takes his new brother-in-law into his business—all in the same day. As Disson's eyes begin to fail him, depsite his optician finding nothing wrong, his brother-in-law becomes an all too familiar face at breakfast, his secretary arouses interests he cannot explain and his son becomes as eerie as a character from a ghost story. Is there a conspiracy against Disson, as he appears to suspect or is he on the brink of madness? At the tea party that ends the play, he sits in a catatonic state, his eyes tightly bandaged, and the guests seem not to even know he's there. 'A masterpiece...embracing comedy and terror.' Times
System Failure by Antoinette Moses This moving piece of Verbative theatre demonstrates the desire of a mother to bring to justice the doctors whose actions she feels culminated in her daughter's death. From the moment when Jean answers the door to the police, to the times when we hear of the joyful times they shared as mother and daugher, to the moment she sits alone and listens to yet another person dismiss her pleas for help, this is a devastatingly human piece of theatre which demonstrates not only a lack of a collective conciousness in the face of drug abuse in our society, but also how sometimes anger is all we have left to hold on to. 'A controlled, devastatingly moving piece of theatre.' Concrete |
