8th July: Two Graham Greene Short Plays

 

As we will be a small group this month, we will read 2 short plays by Graham Greene.

 

Yes and No

Yes and No is a short play consisting of a conversation between a fictional, unnamed Play Director and a fictional, unnamed Actor. The Actor's only lines, as the Director discusses the play script, are the words "Yes" or "No". Greene wrote the play following a dream; it was inspired by his observations of interactions between Sir John Gielgud, director, and Sir Ralph Richardson, actor, during rehearsals for the original 1959 production of Greene's The Complaisant Lover. 

 

For Whom the Bell Chimes

For Whom the Bell Chimes is a three-act comedy farce set in a one-room, studio apartment. Each act starts with the chime of the doorbell and the entrance of a new character and farce in the room. 

 

These two plays have been performed together in the West End - but in the 60s I think!  

 

 

 

5th August: Improbable Fiction

 

Improbable Fiction is a 2005 play by Alan Ayckbourn, about a writers' circle on the night the chairman, Arnold, seems to wander into the imaginations of the other writers.  It is considered to be one of his lighter plays, and it followed on from his notably bleak Private Fears in Public Places.

Part of the inspiration for Improbable Fiction was reported to be a talk that Alan Ayckbourn once gave to a writers' circle, which he suspected was actually more of a social circle. The title was inspired by a quote from William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night:

"If this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as improbable fiction." – Twelfth Night, Act III, scene 4

There are seven characters in the play. They are:

• Arnold, middle-aged chairman of the Writers' group and writer of instruction manuals
• Grace, mother of grown-up children, wants to write children's books
• Jess, a farmer, wants to write period romance novels
• Vivi, younger woman, busy writing detective novels
• Brevis, retired headmaster, still writing musicals
• Clem, young man, writing conspiracy theory science fiction
• Ilsa, carer for Arnold's mother during Writers' group meetings.

In the second act, all the characters start playing various parts from various stories, apart from a confused Arnold who carries on being himself, whatever role is thrust on him by the story. 

 I hope we're not going to get too confused!