3 December: Miracle on 34th Street

 

For a little seasonal joy we are going to read the script of the film Miracle on 34th Street.

 

This  1947 American Classic takes place between Thanksgiving and Christmas in New York, and focuses on the effect of a department store Santa who claims to be the real Santa. The film has become a perennial Christmas favorite and was remade in 1994.

 

 

5 November: Getting On

 For the next two months we are going to read plays about a (different) Labour MP.  The first is set in the 70s, by Alan Bennett, and the second is contemporary by modern playwrite James Graham and takes us through a (very) potted history of U.K. politics in the last 20+ years intertwined with the reality of a constituency office and their internal politics.

Getting On was Alan Bennett's second play, and concerns a disillusioned Member of Parliament, his family, a colleague, and the vicissitudes of their lives. It is a comedy with serious overtones.

The characters expound on their frustrations, their disappointments, their brushes with mortality and their brushes with social norms.

Afterwards Bennett complained that the play had been "clumsily cut without my presence or permission and some small additions made: the jokes were largely left intact while the serious content of the play suffered”, but the text we will read is his original.

The reason for his absence was a clash with the film star Kenneth More, who was playing the central character and who took a dislike to Bennett. "We just did not hit [it] off," More said. It is reported that: "Trouble brewed from the beginning, when More refused to say certain lines he felt his public would not accept, despite Bennett's protestations that the play would be 'disembowelled'."

Just before a try-out performance More found Mona Washbourne, who played his mother-in-law, in tears after Bennett had spoken to her about her character. More insisted that Bennett be barred from the theatre.

Later a director came to Bennett's defence. "Alan felt that Mona was making the part much sweeter than it should have been and told her so. He dislikes sentimentality and sweetening up in any form. I'm sure he was artistically right. Anyway, it's easy to reduce actors to tears. I should know." 

 

Interestingly when I looked for some images for this post, there were none of Bennett and his actors!

 

 

 

 

4 June: Don Juan on Trial

 

This month we are going to try a famous French author, resident in Brussels.  Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt's Don Juan on Trial. 

 

The action takes place one night in a large manor-house in the middle of nowhere on the moors of Normandy. Don Juan is going to be tried by five women. They are all his former lovers and victims and they all want him to marry his latest conquest. Oddly enough, Don Juan agrees. Has life finally caught up with him?

Has the myth come to an end?

 

I hope you will enjoy it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

14 May: Travels with my Aunt by Graham Greene

 We last read this in 2019, pre-pandemic!

 

Travels with My Aunt by Graham Greene, adapted for the stage by Giles Havergal

Not just a play - also a film starring Maggie Smith.

While attending the cremation of his mother's remains, London bank manager Henry Pulling meets eccentric Augusta Bertram, a woman who claims to be his aunt and announces that the woman who raised him was not his biological mother. She invites him back to her apartment, where her lover, an African fortune teller named Zachary Wordsworth, is waiting for her. Shortly after she receives a package allegedly containing the severed finger of her true love, Ercole Visconti, with a note promising the two will be reunited upon payment of $100,000.

Augusta asks Henry to accompany her to Paris and he agrees, unaware she actually is smuggling £50,000 out of England and transporting it to Turkey for a gangster named Crowder in exchange for a £10,000 fee she can put toward the ransom ... and I will not spoil it for  you by saying any more!

 

16 April: Go Back for Murder

  Please Note:  We will meet on 3rd Wednesday of the month in April

In April we will read Go Back for Murder by Agatha Christie 

Agatha Christie, of course, needs no introduction!

 

After receiving a letter from beyond the grave, Carla Crale believes her mother, who died in prison, was wrongly convicted of her father’s murder. In a passionate attempt to clear her name, she persuades those present on the day of her father’s death to return to the scene of the crime and “go back” 16 years to recount their version of events.   An unusual take on the traditional murder mystery, the action of the play slips seamlessly from past to present, examining the danger of relying on personal testimony warped by time, prejudice and perception. By studying each suspect’s testimony, and the various inconsistencies between them, the drama arrives at a disturbing and terrible truth.

 

 

5 March: The Sailing City

 

This month we will be reading a play by a Belgian playwrite, Paul Willems.

 

My friend Malinda has introduced me to his work, and she writes:  Willems, 1912-1997, was born in Edegem, a suburb of Antwerp, on a domain called Missembourg, to a cultured, French-speaking family. His mother, Marie Gevers, was a novelist; and he learned to read from his grandmother, using Telemachus by Fenelon. He studied Maritime Law at the ULB, and after WW II, in 1947 he began to work at the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels, where in 1984 he became its Secretary-General. He travelled widely for his work, but was writing novels and plays at the same time. The first staging of one of his plays was in 1949; he wrote regularly throughout his life; The Sailing City won a literary prize in 1966 and was first staged in 1968. His most famous play, It’s Raining in My House, had been written in 1962, and was staged repeatedly thereafter (its first production was in Germany, where he became popular).

The playwright’s original style combined whimsy, fantasy, and word-play; but many of the texts have a darker undercurrent. The sea is frequently evoked, as well as Belgian cities like Antwerp and Ostend, which have seafaring associations.

 

Indeed, The Sailing City takes place in Antwerp, and I think that this may have been a familiar term for Antwerp, not entirely Willems’ invention. 

 

The play takes place in a brocante shop owned and run by Mr. and Mrs. King, both in their fifties. Mrs. King is however referred to as “Paysage”, because of her skill in selling oil paintings depicting the countryside. Paysage speaks succinctly, often leaving her sentences unfinished. They have an 18-year old daughter, Anne-Marie, who is in love with Dile, aged 25-30. Their shop employee goes by the name of Agreeable.

 

During the play, three other characters come into the shop: Josty, who has returned to Antwerp after an absence of more than 40 years; Fram, the same age as Josty, who “resembles a defrocked priest”; and Feroe, a florist and former lover to Josty all those years ago.

 

Although not a live character, an important feature of the play is a shop mannequin, referred to as Fenetre (she has often appeared in the shop window, although she is currently located inside).

 

The main plot concerns Josty’s decision, prompted by Mr. and Mrs. King, to marry Anne-Marie.

 

Characters

 

M. King: 50

Mme King: 50, nicknamed Landscape

Anne-Marie: 18, their daughter

Agreeable: 20-25, M. King's helper

Josty: 58

Fram: Nearing 60

Feroe: 60

Dile: 25-30, Anne-Marie's lover 

Paul Willems

 

 

 

 

 

Duets

By Peter Quilter

 

A friend has recently brought this quartet of plays to my attention, and indeed the first, Blind Date, will be performed in Brussels in April (by ETCetera).

 

Duets is a hilarious tribute to the strength and madness of the human heart:  Four pairs of characters; Four crucial moments.

 

Jonathan and Wendy are on a blind date and hoping to get it right this time even though they've never got it right before; Barrie is not really interested in women but Janet sees that as no reason to stop trying; Shelley and Bobby have decided to holiday in Spain to finalise their divorce whilst drowning in cocktails; Angela is marrying for the third time to the dismay of her brother Toby and amidst a barrage of bad omens and a dress resembling a parachute.

 

“Duets” has played in 20 countries and has been running for over two years in Brazil. 

 

Peter Quilter

Peter Quilter is a West End and Broadway playwright whose plays have been translated into 30 languages and performed in over 40 countries. He is best known for his Broadway play End of the Rainbow, which was adapted for the Oscar-winning film Judy (2019), starring Renée Zellweger. He is also author of the West End comedy "Glorious!" about the amateur opera singer Florence Foster Jenkins. Peter has twice been nominated for the Olivier Award (Best New Comedy and Best New Play) and his Broadway debut was nominated for 3 Tony Awards.