In the attic of a soon-to-be-demolished house, two brothers meet after a 16 year estrangement to dispose of their dead parents’ property The first is a policeman who sacrificed his education and probably a career as a scientist to care for his ruined, invalid father. The other, who arrives late, is an eminent surgeon who…
Of all of Oscar Wilde’s plays, THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST is the most timeless and universal. There is certainly very little in the play one could call dated, even more than a hundred years after it was written. Perhaps this is because it is almost pure comedy. The plot is as improbable today as…
Sidney Bruhl is a once-successful playwright whose last several productions have flopped at the box office. He then receives a script by a novice writer named Clifford Anderson for a stage thriller entitled Deathtrap. Bruhl tells his wife Myra that the script is brilliant and he then concocts a murder plot whereby he will offer…
Charles Condomine, a successful novelist, wishes to learn about the occult for a novel he is writing, and he arranges for an eccentric medium, Madame Arcati, to hold a séance at his house. At the séance, she inadvertently summons Charles’s first wife, Elvira, who has been dead for seven years. Madame Arcati leaves after the…
Colin must be comforted in his grief over the death of his fiancee so his friends, who never met the girl, arrange a tea party for him. Understandably they are on edge wondering what to say, but there is more to their unease: Diane and Paul, John and Evelyn, and Marge and her husband is…
One of Bernard Shaw’s most glittering comedies, Arms and the Man is also a burlesque of Victorian attitudes to heroism, war and empire. In the contrast between Bluntschli, the mercenary soldier, and the brave leader, Sergius, the true nature of valour is revealed The play takes place during the 1885 Serbo-Bulgarian War. Its heroine, Raina…
CORPSE!, a comedy-thriller, was originally premiered at the American Stage Festival Theatre, Milford, New Hampshire, USA in 1983. Critics were lavish in their praise of the play both in terms of comedy and suspense. In 1984 it was presented in London at the Apollo Theatre with Keith Baxter and Milo O’Shea in the starring roles.…
The play is set in Salford in northwestern England in the 1950s. It tells the story of Jo, a seventeen-year-old working class girl, and her mother, Helen, who is presented as crude and sexually indiscriminate. Helen leaves Jo alone in their new flat after she begins a relationship with Peter, a rich lover who is…
Since 1960, a Broadway season without a Neil Simon comedy or musical has been rare one. During the 1966-67 Season, BAREFOOT IN THE PARK, SWEET CHARITY and THE STAR-SPANGLED GIRL were all running simultaneously; in the 1970-71 Season, Broadway theatergoers had their choice of PLAZA SUITE, LASTOF THE RED HOT LOVERS and PROMISES, PROMISES. Next…