8284 shows
Clear filtersIn darkness, a spotlight isolates a woman's mouth as she rapidly recounts disjointed memories from a life of deprivation and trauma. Her repeated denial that these experiences happened to her gives the monologue its title; some productions include a silent Auditor.
Not Now, Darling is a romantic comedy featuring a cast size of six women and five men. It is 120 minutes long in two acts.The farce takes place in a London fur salon. A man attempts to win a married woman's favor, but his scheme spirals out of control.
Lord Wilmot, an aristocrat, pretends to be immoral to enhance his fashionable reputation, while self-made Hardman feigns honesty to advance socially. Their rivalry satirizes assumptions about gentility and villainy.
Not for Children is a 1934 play by Elmer Rice. It was premiered in 1935 at the Fortune Theatre in the West End of London. The work was performed for the first time on Broadway on February 13, 1951 at the Coronet Theatre; closing four days later after only seven performances. Incidental music was composer by Robert Emmett Dolan. The production starred Elliott Nugent as Ambrose Atwater, Betty Field as Theodora Effington, J. Edward Bromberg as Timothy Forrest, Ann Thomas as Prudence Dearborn, Keene Crockett as Elijah Silverhammer, Alexander Clark as Clarence Orth, and Joan Copeland as Evangeline Orth.
A respectable family man's life is thrown into jeopardy when he is approached by a shady South American who attempts to blackmail him about his misspent youth there. He decides the only way to escape from his predicament is to murder the blackmailer, but things go wrong.
A solo documentary performance built from more than 200 interviews with people caught in the school-to-prison pipeline. Smith embodies 17 speakers across two acts, drawing on real events and footage; the second act invites audience call and response.
A power struggle develops between an older editor and her younger rival in publishing, as both women contend with losing power and status with age.
In 1859 Russia, Arkady returns with the nihilist Bazarov to his father's failing estate, where emancipated serfs remain dependent on the land and the father's relationship with a servant unsettles the household. Bazarov tries to provoke social change, while ideological and romantic conflicts test his revolutionary certainty.
Notoriety is a 1791 comedy play by the British writer Frederick Reynolds. It premiered at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden on in London on 5 November 1791. The original cast included William Thomas Lewis as Nominal, John Quick as Colonel Hubbub, Richard Wilson as Sir Andrew Acid, Joseph Shepherd Munden as Lord Jargon, William Farren as Clairville, Charles Farley as James, John Henry Johnstone as O'Whack, Mrs Webb as Lady Acid, Mary Wells as Sophia Strangways and Harriet Pye Esten as Honoria.
November is a play written by David Mamet which premiered on Broadway in 2008.
A British prison drama centered on a variety of inmates, including new arrivals, old hands and a convicted murderer sentenced to hang.
Amanullah Khan, his wife Soraya Tarzi and her father Mahmud Tarzi are trapped in a car in the snow while escaping Kabul in 1929.
On an American election night, Democratic campaign headquarters becomes the setting for a dispute over free expression and the depiction of Muhammad. The short description ties the conflict to contemporary political tensions.
Set in the anteroom of Hell, the play is described as a tale of madness, depravity, and death.
On an abandoned showground in the declining town of Dry Torrent, an elderly former communist and a homeless Vietnam veteran live among memories of their past. A young Aboriginal woman fleeing an abusive life in the city disrupts their isolation and changes their makeshift community.
A border vigilante, Gary Dobbs, finds Roberto Castillo beside a body in the Arizona desert while Castillo searches for his missing daughter Pilar. As they wait for Border Patrol, they bond over family and the dead, then realize the corpse is Pilar. A parallel story follows Pilar’s dangerous crossing with smugglers.
Hiranyakashipu vows revenge after Vishnu's Varaha avatar kills his brother. His son Prahalad remains devoted to Vishnu despite his father's threats; when Hiranyakashipu orders him to embrace a hot iron pillar, Nrusinh emerges from it and kills the king. The Gujarati play combines the myth with a jester's household and Sanskrit-style dramatic conventions.
After painter Paul Sorodin dies, his family learns he painted none of the celebrated works sold under his name. His valet Sebastien manages the artists who secretly created the works and manipulates the family’s efforts to protect Sorodin’s reputation.
Number 17 is a 1925 thriller play by the British writer Joseph Jefferson Farjeon. It premiered at the Winter Gardens Theatre in New Brighton before beginning a West End run of 209 performances, initially at the New Theatre before transferring to Wyndham's and then the Duke of York's Theatre. The original cast included Nicholas Hannen, Fred Groves, Leon M. Lion and Nora Swinburne. The following year he wrote a novelisation of the play, published by Hodder and Stoughton.
When strong-willed, high-class call girl Claudia Draper is indicted for manslaughter in the first degree after killing a client in self-defense, her mother Rose and stepfather Arthur attempt to have her declared mentally incompetent, which would prevent a trial and cause Claudia to be institutionalized. Public defender Aaron Levinsky is assigned to her case, but Claudia is angry and distrustful of everybody, and she resists his help, disrupting both her examinations by psychiatrist Herbert Rosenthal and her court hearings. As findings progress, new insights into Claudia's entire life experience, including sexual abuse by her stepfather, begin to surface.
A theatrical portrait of Aneurin “Nye” Bevan uses flashbacks and hallucinations to trace his life and the difficult birth of the National Health Service, emphasizing the political and personal obstacles he faced.
Antiquarian Daniel Bachelet suspects his second wife Madeleine of an affair and announces a divorce. His first wife, Valentine, sees a chance to win him back, while Madeleine challenges Daniel to judge the men courting her.
A two-act comedy built around a love triangle among Dayse, her husband Hermes and her lover Dondoco, with two contrasting neighbors. The work uses the triangle to criticize consumerism and treats Dayse as an object of consumption.
A Christmas tea party goes spectacularly wrong when James and Jamesy imagine a flood of tea covering the world. Physical comedy and audience participation turn their search for a way to stay afloat into a shared adventure.
A family is confined to an isolated mansion for twelve years to await an inheritance governed by a disturbing will. When a young man arrives on behalf of the deceased uncle's lawyers, apparently accidental deaths begin, raising the question of murder or coincidence. The characters are marked by compulsions and fixations.
During a provincial election, a love letter from prefect Tipătescu to Zoe is stolen and used by opposition candidate Cațavencu to demand the party nomination. The letter changes hands amid arrests and a chaotic campaign meeting; when Cațavencu loses it again, the party's chosen candidate from the capital wins, and the letter is ultimately returned.
A decorated Irish soldier returns to his village to recruit for the British army, but admits he enlisted to escape poverty and domestic hardship rather than for patriotism, provoking conflict with his Fenian mother and self-interested girlfriend.
A village passion play dramatizing the final days of Jesus, his trial and crucifixion, and the resurrection. The community stages it periodically, traditionally every ten years.
A moonlit crag opens to reveal Silenus prophesying the arrival of Oberon, who will bring order and beneficent rule. Prince Henry enters as the fairy prince in a chariot drawn by white bears, followed by songs, dances and a concluding dance with his mother, Anne of Denmark.
Eight Ulster unionists volunteer for the 36th Division in the First World War. An elderly survivor recalls their lives in a flashback that culminates at the Battle of the Somme, exploring the Boyne and Somme in unionist memory, loyalty, masculinity and sexuality.
In a hypothetical posthumous interview, sculptor Louise Nevelson recounts her childhood, failed marriage and artistic career while an unnamed interviewer challenges her account and probes her life.
When Étienne leaves for military service, he asks his friend Marcel to look after Amélie. Marcel plans to pose as her fiancé to secure his inheritance, but their bedroom encounter and a fake wedding set off a chain of farcical deceptions before Amélie and Étienne are reunited.
This Roman tragedy follows three days in 62 CE as Nero divorces and exiles Octavia and marries Poppaea. Seneca warns Nero without success; as the populace protests, Nero orders Octavia sent to Pandataria to be killed.
Manjula Nayak, an unsuccessful Kannada writer, achieves success with a novel written in English. Her doppelgänger challenges her choice of language and accuses her of betraying her own tongue.
Laid-off factory worker Tim Arends takes yard and household jobs for elderly widow Leonora Phipps, whose memory is slipping. Their companionship grows through her math tutoring, even as Tim's wife Ginette prepares to move for work and Mrs. Phipps must decide whether to accept their help.
Alice marries the direct Ryan and discovers that he has Asperger's. Their relationship becomes an unconventional romantic comedy about differences in social understanding, love and acceptance.
At Troy, Greek envoys seek Helen's return to avert war. Antenor and other statesmen support them, but Paris's faction prevails; the ensuing tragedy critiques weak leadership, demagoguery and political failure. The five-act blank-verse drama stages the deliberations through speech and reports of offstage events.
In Sophocles’ lost tragedy, Telegonus arrives in Ithaca to meet his father Odysseus. They fight without recognizing one another, and Telegonus kills Odysseus with a spear tipped by a stingray spine; the surviving fragments also refer to Odysseus’s oar and an oracle at Dodona.
After twenty years away, Odysseus returns to an impoverished Ithaca ruled by reformers who court Penelope. Haunted by war dead, he tries to restore order through violence and draws his son Telemachus into killing, leaving Penelope to confront what Odysseus has made of him.
In Euripides’ lost tragedy, fragments describe Oedipus defeating the Sphinx and being blinded by a servant of Laius. As the truth about his parentage emerges, Jocasta supports him and accompanies him into exile.
As plague ravages Thebes, King Oedipus seeks the killer of Laius, unaware that he himself committed the crime while fleeing a prophecy. Oracles and witnesses reveal his parentage and incestuous marriage to Jocasta. Oedipus tears out his eyes; Jocasta then kills herself, and he leaves Thebes. Seneca’s tragedy emphasizes fate, guilt and a violent, horrific reckoning.
Voltaire reshapes the Greek myth of Oedipus as a French tragedy, making the investigation of Laius’s murder and the recognition of the oracle’s meaning more rationally motivated. He adds a love plot in which Philoctète loves Jocaste and reduces the incest theme’s prominence.
Oedipus is a politician on the verge of winning a landslide election. As his family gather for an evening together, and as the polls close, Oedipus' life starts to fall apart. As a clock ticks down to his victory in real time, the truth about who he is emerges.
When a plague strikes Thebes, King Oedipus investigates the unsolved murder of his predecessor Laius. Evidence reveals that Oedipus himself killed his father and married his mother, fulfilling a prophecy; Jocasta dies by suicide and Oedipus blinds himself.
Shelley recasts the Queen Caroline divorce proceedings as grotesque political satire: King Swellfoot, a corrupt George IV figure, and his ministers try to suppress the pig-chorus and prosecute Queen Iona Taurina. The pigs challenge parliamentary and clerical hypocrisy; Iona and the Minotaur briefly ally against the royal court, which is transformed and driven away as the people gain freedom.
Blinded and exiled, Oedipus arrives at Colonus with Antigone and Ismene and seeks refuge in a sacred grove. Theseus protects him from Creon’s attempt to seize the daughters; Oedipus rejects Polynices, then dies secretly after promising Athens the blessing of his burial place.
As plague afflicts Thebes, Oedipus investigates the murder of the former king Laius. Creon schemes to seize the throne and pursues his niece Eurydice, whose love for the Argive prince Adrastus becomes a tragic subplot; the adaptation ends in a bloody series of deaths.
Three sisters and the men in their lives gather at the family home for a summer weekend, where the reunion rekindles passion and humor while setting off unexpected upheavals.
Philip Carey abandons his artistic ambitions for medicine but becomes consumed by an unhappy attachment to Mildred. His pursuit of love and beauty forces him to confront dependency, disappointment, and the possibility of a different life.
George, an affable migrant farm worker, and Lennie, a towering simple-minded pleasantly humble young man, are the subjects. They are bound by George's devotion and Lennie's "pathetic helplessness". George's guardianship keeps Lennie out of trouble, but we soon see this is a slippery slope. Lennie's displays of love result in several deaths ranging from mice and puppies to a beautiful woman. Eventually, in the face of a lynch mob, George kills Lennie to put him out of his misery.
Political satire follows presidential candidate John P. Wintergreen, who campaigns on a platform of love and is expected to marry a beauty pageant winner. He instead chooses Mary Turner, prompting a breach-of-promise suit and a diplomatic crisis with France; after Mary bears twins, the political and romantic complications resolve through the vice president’s unexpected role.
Ben Mercer returns home for his aunt’s funeral, two years after the events of Leaving Home.
In the basement of the Free People clothing store where they work, three women form a makeshift coven and welcome a new employee into their ranks.
Set in 1880s Nebraska amid an Indian boarding school, saloon, and brothel, the play recasts Measure for Measure around Pawnee teenager Momaday and Irish orphan Caitlin, whose forbidden marriage and pregnancy lead to his death sentence. Their community confronts the authorities’ abuse and the school’s destructive conditions.
Off the Record is a 1947 British comedy play by Ian Hay and Stephen King-Hall. It is a farce about the Royal Navy. It premiered at the King's Theatre, Edinburgh prior to its London run. In the West End it ran for 702 performances from 3 June 1947 to 12 February 1949, initially at the Apollo Theatre before transferring to the Piccadilly Theatre. The cast included Hugh Wakefield, Hubert Gregg, Roger Maxwell, and Tom Gill. In 1957 it was adapted into the British comedy film Carry on Admiral
An entertainment committee chairman gathers former vaudeville headliners for an annual show, as the farce moves between a Brooklyn living room and a Manhattan hotel room.
Actor Cathy falls for David.
Four speakers address the audience directly, repeatedly denying that events are being represented or that anything theatrical will happen. The anti-play turns attention to the audience’s presence and challenges assumptions about language and theatre.
Joey, a 17-year-old Irish-Canadian basketball player, is benched after his Chinese-Canadian girlfriend Christine suspects he took part in a racially motivated corner-store vandalism. Written for young audiences, the play examines racism through their relationship.
An overbearing mother travels to a Caribbean resort with her son and her deceased husband, preserved in his coffin. Kopit described it as a farce in three scenes.
The play is a spoof of the lives of Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln. It is set in the days leading up to Lincoln's assassination, which occurred while he and Mary were watching Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre. The show portrays Mary as a temperamental alcoholic, stuck in an unhappy marriage with the deeply closeted President Lincoln and desperate to return to her past glory days as a cabaret star.
Two men, Reader and Listener, sit at a table in silence. Reader reads a story about a bereaved man comforted night after night by a mysterious visitor; Listener knocks to make Reader repeat the last sentence, until the tale ends and they face each other as the light fades.
Ohio State Murders is a one-act play that revolves around racism, misogyny, and young adulthood. The play focuses on the life of Suzanne Alexander, a college student at Ohio State University from 1949 to 1950. As she goes back to her alma mater as a renowned Black author to speak, Suzanne addresses the reasons why she uses "violent" images in her works. This query gives Suzanne the platform to fully speak about her trauma experienced as a black woman at Ohio State University and the murder of her daughters Cathi and Carol by her professor, and the father of her children, Robert Hampshire. Suzanne is faced with systemic racism through the education system and peers, sexism by her professor and police, and internalized racism from her family members. Kennedy provides a powerfully crafted portrayal of Suzanne Alexander's isolation and the glass ceiling at Ohio State in the 1950s.
As a feud between two families is to be settled by the marriage of Olaf and Ingeborg, Olaf falls in love with Audhild, a young woman believed to be of elf-kind and linked to a plague-survivor legend.
Two childhood friends from Harrisburg, now successful writers, find their long friendship strained by romantic entanglements involving a publisher, their former husbands, and their daughters. When Milly discovers that Kit's lover has become involved with her daughter, she accuses Kit of trying to take her family; the women eventually begin to reconcile.
While studying at Heidelberg University, Prince Karl falls in love with Käthie, an innkeeper's daughter. His father's death calls him home to rule as king, forcing him to leave her.
Old Maids is an 1841 comedy play by the Irish writer James Sheridan Knowles. It was first staged at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden in London on 12 October 1841. The cast included John Harley as John Blount, George Vandenhoff as Thomas Blount, Walter Lacy as Robert, Robert William Honner as Harris, William Payne as Stephen, Alfred Wigan as Jacob, Lucia Elizabeth Vestris as Lady Blance and Louisa Nisbett as Lady Anne. It was produced towards the end of the theatrical career of Sheridan Knowles, before he turned to novel-writing.
At a party in an Upper East Side Manhattan townhouse, the play shifts between present-day guests and people of the early twentieth-century Gilded Era, examining materialism and contrasting social worlds.
At a converted farmhouse, married couple Kate and Deeley await Kate’s old friend Anna. Their competing stories about the past, sexual jealousy, and a shared young man leave the relationships and even the characters’ memories uncertain.
In Vienna in 1986, burned-out American pianist Stephen Hoffman is sent to study with Professor Josef Mashkan, first learning to sing Schumann’s Dichterliebe. Mashkan’s anti-Jewish insults strain their relationship until Hoffman’s visit to Dachau prompts him to tell the professor what he experienced there. The lessons uncover Mashkan’s own Holocaust-survivor past and connect sadness and joy in the poetry and music they study.
Lucy Marsden, once the child bride of a Confederate captain, recounts her life in the American South. One performer carries her stories of war, marriage, hardship and endurance.
In three acts, a university student and her professor meet privately after she struggles with his course. Her complaint of sexual harassment threatens his tenure; as their arguments over power and academic speech intensify, the confrontation ends in violence.
Oliver Twist is a 1905 dramatic adaptation by J. Comyns Carr from part of the 1838 novel by Charles Dickens. The five-act play with ten scenes was commissioned by Herbert Beerbohm Tree who wished to play Fagin, so the playwright built the work around that character. The play was first tried out in London's West End, for a single performance in July 1905. It had a more formal premiere in September. The production starred Tree, with Constance Collier and Lyn Harding in support. It ran through mid-December 1905. The London Oliver Twist was still going when F. F. Proctor produced the J. Comyns Carr version in New York, starring J. E. Dodson, with Amelia Bingham, and Hardee Kirkland. It made its Broadway premiere in November 1905 and closed after three weeks. The J. Comyns Carr version of Oliver Twist had a more successful Broadway revival in February 1912, which starred Nat C. Goodwin, with Constance Collier, Lyn Harding, and Marie Doro, and ran through to May 1912.
Ollantay, a common-born general, falls in love with Cusi Coyllur, the Inca ruler Pachacutec's daughter. When the ruler rejects the match and imprisons her, Ollantay flees and leads a rebellion. Years later, the new ruler captures him but pardons the rebels; Cusi's daughter reveals her mother's identity, and the ruler reunites the couple.
A man who has killed his daughter and forgotten his crime tries to find meaning in his life; the play examines the everyday, small-scale fascism Bond sees in ordinary people.
Pauline Morin, a Parisian courtesan who has faked her death to marry Henri, Count de Puygiron, attempts to sustain a respectable aristocratic life while her deception and Henri’s attachment to Genevieve come to light.
An aristocratic widow becomes involved with a cavalry officer whose social origins threaten her family’s standing. When their assumptions are challenged, a romantic encounter becomes a struggle over pride, class, and reputation.
Omai, heir to Tahiti's throne, is to marry Londina, daughter of Britannia, symbolically uniting their countries. To escape rivals seeking to prevent the match, the pair travel through places visited by Captain Cook.
At a sophisticated Manhattan dinner party after September 11, guests argue about capitalism, terrorism, feminism, food, wealth, heroism, morality and justice. Conversation shifts from comedy to satire and ends in chaos.
The exacting and difficult Maria Wislack is a widow who decides to take Richard away to her Scottish island for a month's trial "on approval" to see if they are compatible for possible marriage. The egotistical and difficult Duke of Bristol (who is Richard's friend) contrives to be there as well. While there they meet Helen, who is in love with the Duke, and circumstances make all four of them stay on the island for the month. Because of the bad behaviour of Mrs Wislack and the Duke, Helen and Richard decide not to marry either of them and they leave them stranded on the island. The Duke and Mrs Wislack pretend to be romantically involved to make the other two jealous, but end up marrying each other instead.
Yeats reworks the early Irish tale Aided Óenfhir Aífe around the mythic hero Cuchulain, adding significant changes and a comic subplot.
Aging couple Norman and Ethel Thayer return to their summer home at Golden Pond. Their daughter Chelsea arrives with her fiancé and his son, whom the Thayers host for the summer; as Norman and the boy bond, Chelsea confronts her father about their difficult relationship and reconciles with him. Norman suffers a possible heart attack as the couple prepares to leave for winter.
Grieving her absent father, Babe throws firecrackers from Lincoln’s head; ranger Annette intervenes to stop her.
During a drought, farmer Dad Rudd's neighbor seizes his stock and plots against him. The neighbor's son pursues Dad's daughter, and a murder leaves her boyfriend suspected until an eccentric local confesses. Dad later prospers and wins election to parliament.
On Sugarland is a 2022 American play by Aleshea Harris. The play is a loose adaptation of Sophocles's Greek tragedies Philoctetes and Antigone, and centers a teenage girl calling on her matriarchal ancestors to learn the truth about her mother who died in an unnamed, allegorical war. The play takes place in a historical Southern cul-de-sac of mobile homes. On Sugarland was a finalist for the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
A decorated Black war veteran tries to move his family into a white neighborhood, confronting discrimination in the renting and sale of housing.
Scientist Will Paxton returns to his family's Norfolk home above a coastal salt marsh to introduce Sarika and tell his father Robin that he is leaving Antarctic research for government service. As dangerous weather threatens flooding, Robin and his wife Jenny must decide whether to evacuate.
In a one-man PowerPoint lecture tour, Arthur Meek portrays author Richard Meros arguing that New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark needs a younger lover and that he is the ideal candidate. The performance turns his appeal into political satire, combining critiques of liberal individualism, Kantian theory and an imagined “pleasure dome.”
Mohsen Moeini's stage adaptation of Oman Samani's Ashura text Ganjinat al-asrar brings the religious narrative to the stage through live performance, voice acting, music and multimedia imagery.
As war breaks out between fictional Ostnia and Westland, parallel households occupy opposite halves of a shared stage but cannot perceive one another. Their son and daughter sense each other’s presence, and the play ends with the lovers meeting in a visionary scene.
At a town-hall lecture on tobacco's harmful effects, the smoking lecturer Nyukhin repeatedly turns to complaints about his domineering wife, his poverty, and his wish to escape, while scarcely addressing his assigned topic.
In a post-apocalyptic wasteland after a civil war, Al meets Angel, who is gagged and threatened with hanging. Angel takes over pulling a cart of art rescued from bombed museums in exchange for freedom and lessons in art and music. Later, a new government orders them to assassinate Jesus, who has returned as a cellist and is imprisoned in a monastery.
Two employees of a village grocery leave their work to enjoy Vienna, where disguises, mistaken identities and romantic complications entangle them with their employer, his fiancée and others before they slip back unnoticed.
In 1916 Cornwall, D. H. and Frieda Lawrence's turbulent relationship is strained by suspicion that Frieda is signaling German U-boats. Their friends John Middleton Murry and Katherine Mansfield join them in Lawrence's hoped-for community, but conflict and Mansfield's departure leave Lawrence feeling betrayed.
In a near-future Britain facing economic collapse and social unrest, Prime Minister Arthur Chavender debates advisers, family members and public delegations over nationalization and dictatorship.
On the Shore of the Wide World is a play by the English playwright Simon Stephens. It opened 18 April 2005, at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, under the direction of Sarah Frankcom. On May 26, the production transferred to the Cottesloe space of the Royal National Theatre in London. The play focuses on three generations of the Holmes family in Stockport, England, examining the persistent dreams and struggles facing each generation. The play takes its title from the poem When I have Fears that I may Cease to Be by John Keats.
An aid worker becomes involved in Afghan women's rights when a land-rights dispute is to be settled by betrothing two young girls to older men.
On the Spot is a 1930 Chicago-set play by the British writer Edgar Wallace. Wallace was inspired by a visit to the United States and, in particular, the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre. Known as a prolific author, he reportedly dictated the manuscript for the play in just four days. It was his greatest theatrical success. The lead role of a Capone-like gangster Tony Perelli was played by Charles Laughton with Emlyn Williams as his henchman and Gillian Lind playing Perelli's Chinese mistress. Other cast members included W ronin Wilson, Roy Emerton, Carol Reed, Dennis Wyndham and Gladys Frazin. It transferred to America in October 1930, with Crane Wilbur as Perelli and Anna May Wong as Minn Lee, and ran for 167 performances at the Forrest Theatre in New York. In 1931, Wallace novelised the play using the same title.
The basic plot of the play follows the adventures of three Victorian women explorers into what they believe to be Terra Incognita, a new, unexplored land. The three are from very different exploration backgrounds but all exhibit their own form of independence. From the world in general and specifically men. The three together discuss many aspects of their pasts in exploring, with Mary and Fanny frequently trying to outdo each other. As the ladies progress on their travels it becomes apparent that they are not on an ordinary journey. Mary reaches the conclusion at the end of the first act that the three of them are in fact traveling forward through time and that, while doing so, they are beginning to absorb knowledge from the future. Alex dubs this phenomenon osmosing and from that point forward in the play, the ladies actively, and often fruitlessly try to osmose what the things they are encountering are, e.g. In the scene where Alex first encounters Cool Whip she takes several guesses at the item's identity: "(Osmoses) 'Mo hair'. No. 'Jello mold'. No. (Tastes) Noxzema! Yes! Heaven!"
A stage adaptation of Yumie Hiraiwa’s Edo-period story centered on Shōji Rui, the proprietress of an inn.
A comedy about an egotistical orchestra conductor and his harpist wife as their relationship strains under his demands and infidelity.
A public-relations man finds his picture in a newspaper beside a curvaceous model wearing only his client’s product.
A comedy looking back at the values of 1950s Catholic convent schools and the responses of female adolescents to those values.
Will Drummond faces the loss of his father and the imminent loss of his mother as familiar certainties give way. The play moves between the 1950s and present, West Berlin and Byron Bay, using appearing characters from other plays to explore family, aging, grief, social change and theatre itself.
A satirical comedy, Once in a Lifetime focuses on the effect talking pictures have on the entertainment industry. When the New York City vaudevillean team of Jerry Hyland, May Daniels, and George Lewis find themselves in a faltering vaudeville act, they decide to head west and present themselves as elocution experts in the hope someone will hire them to train actors unaccustomed to speaking on screen. On the train they meet gossip columnist Helen Hobart, who introduces them to megalomaniac film mogul Herman Glogauer when they arrive in Hollywood. The trio's misadventures include encounters with Lawrence Vail, a New York City playwright driven to distraction and eventually a sanatorium by studio bureaucracy and a lack of work to keep him busy; silent screen beauties Phyllis Fontaine and Florabel Leigh, whose voices sound like nails on a blackboard; two pages in 18th-century dress who periodically arrive carrying placards with announcements about Glogauer's latest doings; a ditzy receptionist who wears an evening gown to work; and aspiring actress (and proverbial dumb blonde) Susan Walker and her chaperoning stage mother. Dimwitted George becomes a director who shoots the wrong script, forgets to turn on the soundstage lights, and audibly cracks nuts during filming, yet his movie is called a masterpiece and he is declared a genius by trend-conscious journalists who believe he is ahead of his time.
The play opens in a fisherman's hut near a lake in the forest. Outside a storm rages. Here live the old fisherman Auguste and his wife Eugenie. And here lives Ondine whom the old couple found as a baby at the edge of the lake, and brought up in place of their own daughter who was mysteriously snatched away as an infant. Auguste is upset because Ondine is out somewhere in the storm. As Auguste rages, naiads, the wind, and even the King of the Ondines himself (throughout the play referred to as the Old One) peer in at the windows gently mocking Auguste. Evidently this is not unusual—the old couple are well aware that Ondine is "not like anyone else". A knight-errant, Hans von Wittenstein zu Wittenstein, arrives seeking shelter and he is welcomed. While he is in the midst of telling Auguste and Eugenie about his betrothal to the princess Bertha, Ondine appears. On seeing Hans she says, "How beautiful he is!" In spite of taunts from Ondine's sister naiads, and against the advice of Auguste, Hans immediately falls in love with Ondine. All thought of Bertha, his "dark angel" — the woman who sent him off on his quest — is banished. Ondine in turn swears eternal love for Hans. The Old One warns her, "The man will deceive you. He will abandon you." Ondine does not believe him. He gives a final warning "You will remember our pact." Ondine reluctantly agrees. In the great hall of the king's palace, it is the day that Hans is to present his bride Ondine at court. The Lord Chamberlain, who needs to arrange an entertainment for the day's ceremonies, is in conference with the director of the royal theater, the trainer of the seals, and the Illusionist (in actuality the King of the Ondines). Soon they are joined by the poet Bertram and several ladies of the court. The Illusionist says he will arrange a little private entertainment while they are waiting. As to what they would like to see, everyone is curious to see what will happen when Hans and the embittered Bertha finally meet after avoiding each other for three months. The Illusionist says he can arrange for this event to take place at once. Bertram objects asking, "Why are we doing this evil thing?" The Chamberlain cynically replies, "Sooner or later it would have to happen. That's life." They all conceal themselves behind a pillar and watch as the inevitable events unfold. Hans and Bertha meet. Bertha manipulates Hans with guilt. The Illusionist gives the spectators a further glimpse into the future showing them the scene when Hans realizes that he married the wrong woman. Bertha intimately knows the Wittenstein family history, she plays the lute, she recites, she illuminates manuscripts—she is the perfect woman. When Bertha asks Hans what Ondine does that might advance her husband's interests at court, he replies, "Oh, she swims. Occasionally." Continuing the play-within-a-play structure, the Illusionist presents the remaining events of the day in scenes which the astonished participants themselves watch from behind the pillar. The Chamberlain just has time to prepare Ondine for her reception with the king. Ondine is particularly advised not to mention the wart on the king's nose. Ondine tactlessly mentions that the Chamberlain's hand is damp and constantly interrupts him to talk to Bertram with whom she immediately establishes a rapport. At the king's reception Ondine cannot take her eyes off Bertha. She accuses Bertha of trying to steal Hans from her. The King says, "Bertha only wants to be your friend." Ondine replies, "You are entirely mistaken! Bertha is a hypocrite. She flatters you constantly. Has she ever dared to speak to you about...the wart on your nose?" In panic, the Chamberlain clears the room. Ondine is alone with the king. The king asks, "Who are you, Ondine?" Ondine explains everything and says that she weeps because "they are trying to take Hans away from me." "But what if they did", the king asks. "Would that be such a misfortune?" Ondine answers, "Oh yes. If he deceives me, he will die." The king says, "Men have been known to survive such things." "Not this one", Ondine replies. The Illusionist has one more scene. Bertha is revealed to be not a princess, but the long lost daughter of Auguste and Eugenie. When Bertha refuses to acknowledge her true parents, the king banishes her until she apologizes. She leaves sobbing, but at Ondine's urging, she is soon forgiven. After the events of this disastrous day, Ondine laments, "Oh, how difficult it is to live among you, where what has happened can never again not have happened. How terrible to live where a word can never be unspoken and a gesture can never be unmade." Act Three takes place in the courtyard of castle of the Wittenstein. Five years have passed. Hans has deceived Ondine with Bertha, and Ondine has long since vanished. It is the morning of the day of the marriage of Bertha and Hans. But Hans is troubled. He tells Bertha, that she should have married a man full of pride and joy. He complains, "Oh Bertha, how she lied to me, that woman!" Bertha points out that Ondine was no woman, "you married a creature of another world. You must forget her." Hans remembers the day that Ondine left and asks, "But why does she proclaim to the world that she deceived me with Bertram?" In addition to being preoccupied with Ondine, Hans is worried because the servants are starting to speak in poetry and there is a Wittenstein legend that this always happens just before misfortune strikes. Two fishermen arrive. The second fisherman is the Old One. They have caught Ondine. Two judges from the inquisition are summoned and immediately put her on trial. Ondine is brought in draped in the net in which she was caught. She does not deny being an Ondine and proclaims to all who will listen that she deceived Hans with Bertram. The judge asks Hans to clearly state the exact nature of his complaint. Hans says, "My complaint? My complaint is the complaint of all mankind. I claim the right to be left in peace in a world that is free of intrusions by these creatures. Has there never been an age when they did not afflict us?" The judge answers, "An age? There has never been a moment." But the other judge says, "Yes, there was once a moment. For that instant, the whole world was single-hearted, at play, at peace — and yet I tasted for the first time a certain loneliness." As the trial progresses it becomes clear that Hans is still in love with Ondine. Ondine, in a vain attempt to get out of her pact with the Old One (Hans must die because he deceived Ondine with Bertha) continues to insist that she deceived Hans first with Bertram. Bertram is summoned and supports Ondine's story. But no-one believes them, least of all the second fisherman. Ondine is accused of sorcery. The Old One leaps to her defense saying, "This woman could call upon the earth and the heavens to do her bidding. But she gave up her power to be human. Write this into your record, Judge — this Ondine was the most human being that ever lived. She was human by choice." In the end the judges decide that Ondine transgressed the boundaries of nature, but in so doing she brought only kindness and love. So they are compassionate in merely sentencing her to death while sparing her a public execution. The earthly judges have no power over Ondine, however, and as the executioner attempts to lead her away, the Old One waves him off. But Hans must die because of the original pact between the Old One and Ondine. The Old One says kindly to Ondine, "If you wish, I will let him die at the same moment that you forget him." Hans and Ondine have one last moment of tenderness. Her sisters will call Ondine three times, and then she will forget everything. Hans laments that their parting will be "a real farewell, a farewell forever. Not like those lovers who part, but are destined to be reunited again in the afterlife. We part for eternity, we go to different worlds." They recall their first meeting, the night Hans came out of the storm. Ondine recalls that she said, "In after years we shall have this hour to remember. The hour before you kissed me." Hans says, "I can't wait. Now, Ondine. Kiss me now." As they kiss, the third Ondine calls. Hans dies. Ondine looks around in puzzlement. She asks, "Who is this handsome young man lying here, can you bring him back to life, Old One?" He replies, "Impossible." As the curtain falls Ondine says, "What a pity! How I should have loved him!"
A New England pharmaceutical manufacturer learns that his company’s patent medicine may have caused a child’s death and could endanger other patients. He must choose between recalling the drug at the risk of bankruptcy or concealing the danger; the dispute divides the company and its family.
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In a new middle-class housing development, Dennis and Pauline Cain wait for his parents, lost among identical streets, while the neighborhood blames the “Parnes Kids” for a wave of absurd garden vandalism. Their guests Jane and Roger join the conversation as the play teases whether the culprit is closer to home—and what Dennis is hiding in his bureau.
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