10 January 2024: Ulster American

 

I am tempted to start "Happy New Year!" but as you all know I'm writing this before Christmas ... "Merry Christmas!" too!

 

Our first play of 2024 will be one that was put on by the ITG a short while ago and which I loved.  A writer, an actor and a director meet to discuss a forthcoming play and their fiery debate covers so much that even if you saw it superbly performed by Jane McBride, Neale McDonald and Caraigh McGregor you may well wish to revisit their examinations of feminism; Irish politics; Brexit; being Irish; gender relations; world politics and almost certainly more!  Funny, fast paced and a great start to the new year.

The Guardian gave the Edinburgh production in 2018 a 5* review, so I'm hopeful that you will have a really enjoyable afternoon.

 

 

6 December: Andrew Biss - The Comedy Collection

 

I am still recovering from the discovery of how wonderful pumpkin pie is!  Thank you so much Judi, the empty plate proved just how good it was!

 

In December we will preview the ECC's spring production, a collection of 10 minute plays by Andrew Biss, which is described on his website as:

 

From the sublimely funny to the ridiculously inane, this unique compilation of some of the playwright’s most popular short plays runs the comedy gamut. Some have their roots in realism, while others wilfully and wantonly upend theatrical customs and conventions. Some are playful and light-hearted, while others hew closer to the realm of dark comedy. But whatever their milieu, they all share one common goal: to entertain and amuse.

 

I went to the auditions and really enjoyed the pieces, most are for 2 people and so it means that, unusually, readers will get to perform the leading role in an entire play!

  

 

 

As it is December we will have mince pies (thank you Debbie) and mulled wine!  Tea for those of you who don't like it (is there anyone??)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

11 October - Allelujah!

 

In October we will be meeting on the 2nd Wednesday of the month and, because of the current interest in the film, read Allelujah! by Alan Bennett.

We read this play in 2019!  And it is incredibly hard to do as there are so many roles. So we'll just have to read it with great good humour and tolerance!  Everyone will need to keep on their toes!

Here's my information from 2019:

Allelujah! is Alan Bennett's new play which opened in London last year.  Unfortunately it has a cast of thousands (well, 25) which has made it difficult to prepare for the group.  Therefore, I hope you'll bear with me!

Allelujah! by Alan Bennett

Allelujah! is an NHS drama set in a friendly hospital in rural Yorkshire. Colin, an ambitious local boy turned metropolitan yuppie, has arrived from London to visit his sick father and he takes the opportunity to assess the efficiency of the hospital on behalf of his bosses at the health department in Whitehall. Meanwhile, a TV crew has found evidence that a staff member is murdering elderly patients to create vacant beds for new arrivals. 

In reality Allelujah! is a musical and not strictly politically accurate: the latter I'm going to ignore and the former will also be mentioned but we will not be singing and I will not be choreographing dance routines!

30 August: Til Death Do Us Part

 

 An early September play reading!

Til Death Do Us Part by Safaa Benson-Effiom

Not to be confused with the film of a very similar name, nor the racist Alf Garnet on the BBC in the 1960s/70s!

 

After fifteen years of marriage, Daniel and Sylvia find themselves drifting further apart with each passing day. Until one morning, they find themselves abruptly united by every parent’s worst nightmare… A timely spotlight on love and loss, Til Death Do Us Part is the debut play of Safaa Benson-Effiom, and was a finalist in the 2020 Theatre503 International Playwriting Award and Soho Theatre’s 2019 Tony Craze award.

 

2nd August: Machinal

  

Before addressing August, please note:

The September Meeting will be held on Wednesday 30th August!

 

I hope that some of you will be back from your holidays by then!

August: Machinal by Sophie Treadwell

 

Another of my National Theatre purchases, and a slightly 'different' play.  It successfully ran in Broadway in 1928 with Clark Gable as 'The Lover'.  It arrived in London two years later, provoked a sensation in Moscow in 1933 and then forgotten until revived in New York and London in the 1990s.

 

"This is a play written in anger.  In the dead wasteland of male society - it seems to ask - isn't it necessary for certain women, at least, to resort to murder?" Nicholas Wright

The Plot:  The story of a young woman who murders her husband.  An ordinary woman.  Any woman.

The Plan:  The story is shown by showing the different phases of life that the woman goes through, none of which bring her any peace.  She is soft and tender.  Life around her is hard and mechanical.  The story is told by voices around her.   The play is named after the French word for mechanical.

Let's see how we get on!

Sophie Treadwell

 

Sophie Treadwell was a campaigning journalist in America between the wars. She covered the sensational murder case involving Ruth Snyder, who with her lover, Judd Gray, had murdered her husband and gone to the electric chair.  From this Machinal, a powerful expressionist drama about the dependent status of women and the living hell of a loveless marriage, was born.

 

 

Thursday 29 June - Please Note Change of Date! Ladies Day by Amanda Whittington

 Things have not been going quite  to plan!

I apologise that this year's play readings have not been keeping to schedule, I shall try to do better for the rest of the year!

Last month we finally read Kerry Jackson, and I think it's fair to say that we were not entirely enthusiastic about it in our discussion at the end.  However, the ECC gave it a much warmer welcome!  Perhaps because I gave it such a bad review before we started!

Unfortunately I have messed up with July!  And so we will meet the week before, but on the THURSDAY - 29TH JUNE.

 

Ladies Day

by Amanda Whittington

Life is one long, hard slog for the fish-filleting foursome Pearl, Jan, Shelley and Linda. But their fortunes are set to change when they head to Ladies Day at the races. Factory hairnets make way for fascinators as the four friends hit the races for an unforgettable day out.

Secrets are spilled with the champagne and friendships are tested to the limit. Yet as the day unfolds and tempers fray, their accumulator bet keeps quietly winning. If their luck and their nerve holds, the ladies could could hit the jackpot – and more.

 

This play is consistently in Nick Hern Book’s Top Ten Most Performed Plays and enjoys hundreds of amateur productions across the UK.  It has been produced as a play for Radio 4.

 

I do hope we like it, not least because I have bought many scripts based on the Nick Hern 2023 list! 

8 March - Kerry Jackson - PLEASE NOTE, 2ND WEEK OF MONTH

 

FIRSTLY A REMINDER:

No Play Reading in April and May

We will resume as normal on  7th June

 

Kerry Jackson by April de Angelis

I have this conviction that I read a good review in The Guardian of Kerry Jackson, but when I went to find it for this blog it turns out  they gave it just one star!  A search of the internet revealed some more pretty damning reviews!  Oh dear!  What have I done?!

I did, however, find this on the little known (to me anyway) website www.cityam.com.  

Amid the deafening noise of the culture wars, when everyone’s trying to shout the loudest to get their point across, we need shows like Kerry Jackson. A new piece by April De Angelis, it employs an almost perplexingly simple set up to show how easily we forget to look for the empathy in one another.

Kerry Jackson is 52, working class, and has lived in London all her life. She’s just opened her new business, a Spanish tapas restaurant, and she’s a ball of energy – but it’s not long before she starts dishing out opinions about everyone from the local homeless guy to who should and shouldn’t be allowed into the country. She has a poisonous tongue, but would probably be good fun on a night out.

Then there is Stephen, played by Michael Gould, a mild-mannered, middle class visitor who gets wrapped up in Kerry’s restaurant life and also in-between her sheets.

With a small cast, their pairing feels predictable, but the rest is surprising and sensational: De Angelis writes convincingly from both perspectives as the couple joust over just about everything, displaying their polarised attitudes, and there’s a shocking culmination that gives Ibsen a run for his money. 

The script is basically the story of Kerry getting schooled by a posh bloke but De Angelis shows how he’s as broken as she is. “That’s the first time you’ve told the truth,” Jackson barks at him – correctly – after he erupts at her one night, exploding any presumption that his middle class status gives him a moral highground.

It’s all devastatingly convincing, forcing us to look inward at our own prejudices. In particular, Fay Ripley’s studied performance as Kerry Jackson feels like an homage to working class London women. Jackson feels real, like she’s been plucked off the street. Ripley is hilarious but she gets at every part of this woman: she nails her defensiveness, her gestures, her feline walk and how her voice morphs, words sometimes flying like poison darts, at others with an inquiring softness. 

She’s dressed to look the part by Richard Kent, and there’s clever juxtaposition in the staging, especially when a homeless guy called Will, brought to life by Michael Fox, is shown cowering outside on the streets, inches from where the two of them are discussing his fate as if it were literal dinnertime entertainment. 

It’s disarmingly simple: how De Angelis calls her show Kerry Jackson, how the poster is a picture of Kerry Jackson – it’s so straightforward that it shouldn’t work. But De Angelis and Ripley have turned out to be a ferocious female power team. More, please.

I think we'll just have to read it and make up our own minds!