Stuff Happens by David Hare. “‘Stuff happens’ was Donald Rumsfeld's reaction to the news that Baghdad was being looted in April 2003 after the fall of Saddam. From this profoundly callous remark David Hare took the title for his masterly drama on the political and diplomatic lead-up to the Iraq invasion. With Stuff Happens Hare has done both the theatre and our times an enormous service.” Vanity Fair
  
  
 

MARCH 2007

The Beaux' Stratagem, a comedy by George Farquhar, first produced at the Haymarket Theatre in London, two months before the playwright's death in 1707.
 
 
 

APRIL 2007

Translations by Brian Friel. First performed in 1980 in the Guildhall Theatre in Derry, Brian Friel’s Translations was one of the flagships of the Field Day Group, a gathering of writers and artists including actor Stephen Rea, poets Seamus Heaney and Tom Paulin, academic Seamus Deane, and playwright Friel, whose project was to reinvigorate the political consciousness of Irish literary arts with a respect for traditions of nation, self, and language which extended past the republican rhetoric of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Translations has since assumed the mantle of a classic of modern Irish theatre. In only twenty years it has already found its way into the education system.

MAY 2007

London Assurance by Dion Boucicault is essentially a comedy of manners, centering on the contrast between town and country. When the comedy opened on 4 March, 1841, it established the young dramatist as "the cleverest, raciest, and most theatrically inventive playwright of his age," according to Andrew Parkin in Victorian Britain, An Encyclopedia. Over his career, the wittiest dramatist between Sheridan and Wilde produced some 200 plays.
 

JUNE 2007

Jeffrey by Paul Rudnick. Jeffrey, a gay actor/waiter, has sworn off sex after too many bouts with his partners about what is "safe" and what is not. In gay New York, though, sex is not something you can avoid. Whether catering a ditzy socialite's "Hoe-down for AIDS" or cruising at a funeral; at the gym or in the back rooms of an anonymous sex club; at the annual Gay Pride Parade, or in the libidinous hands of a father-confessor, Jeffrey finds the pursuit of love and just plain old physical gratification to be the number-one preoccupation of his times—and the source of plenty of hilarity. Suddenly, just after he's reconciled himself to celibacy, Jeffrey's flamboyant friends introduce him to the man of his dreams, who also happens to be HIV-positive. What follows is an audacious and moving romantic comedy with a difference—one in which the quest for love and really fabulous clothes meet, and where unflagging humor prevails even when tragedy might be just around the corner.

JULY 2007

Fifth of July by Lanford Wilson, chronologically the third of the Talley's Folly trilogy, was first presented by New York's famed Circle Repertory Company. This brilliant, enthralling play has been hailed as a major work by one of our theatre's most important and celebrated writers. Alternately funny and moving, it deals with a group of former student activists and the changes that have been wrought in their lives and attitudes in the years since leaving college. The talk of the characters, as the play progresses, is sharp and funny and, in the final essence, deeply revealing of lost hopes and dreams and of the bitterness that must be fought back if one is to perceive the good that life can offer.

AUGUST 2007

A Chorus of Disapproval (1984) by Alan Ayckbourn (a favorite of past readings). Following the death of his wife, Guy Jones joins Pendon Light Amateur Dramatic Society (PALOS) and is cast in a slight role in The Beggar’s Opera. Things soon change as he find himself rapidly ascending the amateur theatrical ranks. The problem is Guy is unable to say no to anyone – and consequently a number of people assume he has promised some service or other ranging from leaking industrial secrets to offers of love. He has, of course, done none of these things and as he assumes the title role of Macheath on the first night, he is surrounded and shunned by people who believe he has played them or duped them. The action of the main plot skilfully interweaves and mirrors John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera. Ayckbourn is the Artistic Director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre and one of the world’s most popular and prolific professional playwrights. He has written 70 full length plays and more than 20 other revues and plays for children.

An Absolute Turkey by Georges Feydeau is an elegantly complex play, brought to life in this witty, seamless and acutely funny translation by Peter Hall and Nicki Frei. Feydeau, the supreme master of farce, displays all his dramatic tricks as his characters are pulled back and forth spinning dizzily in a surrealistic climax of complications. This translation of An Absolute Turkey (Le Dindon) received its London premiere at the Globe Theatre in December 1993.

Though critics at the time dismissed Feydeau's works as light entertainment, he is now recognized as one of the great French playwrights of his era. Some have even gone so far as to refer to him as the "Bach of his form." His plays are seen today as precursors to Surrealist and Dada theatre, and the Theatre of the Absurd. His plays have been continuously revived and are still widely performed today.

Another Country by Julian Mitchell is set in an English public school in the early 1930s. The future leaders of the English ruling class are being prepared for their roles in the Establishment. But the two central characters are outsiders: Guy Bennett, coming to terms with his homosexuality, and Tommy Judd, a committed Marxist. Judd wants to abolish the whole system of British life, Bennett wants a successful career within it – but school, and the system, have traditional ways of dealing with rebels.

The story of the Cambridge spy ring, the group of notorious double agents who passed secrets to the Soviet Union, has long held great fascination for the British public. It is an exciting story, and also a puzzling one – what could have led the four men to betray their country as they did? Another Country suggests that the seeds of treachery were sown in their schooldays. The play follows Guy Bennet, a fictional shadow of Guy Burgess, as he struggles against the strictures of a public boarding school. The claustrophobic atmosphere breeds discontent, and secrecy, subversion and the ability to maintain an illusion become vital. The play is very funny and very sad.

www.standingpoem.com   ©2007 Cass Brayton