Ayckbourn - Three Plays

In Three Plays Ayckbourns darkly comic, perfectly pitched dialogue slices into the soul of suburbia. The settings are simple a kitchen, a bedroom, a party where couples meet, bewildered, puzzled and angry. The fraught relationships between men and women are exposed with humour, bathos and a sharp understanding of human nature. Born in London in 1939, Alan Ayckbourn is one of Britains most popular and prolific playwrights. He has written 74 full length plays and more than 20 other revues and plays for children. Alan Ayckbourn was awarded a CBE in 1987.

Ten years later he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for services to the theatre. ALAN AYCKBOURN Three Plays:
Absurd Person
Singular,
Absent Friends,
Bedroom Farce

Absurd Person Singular the title was originally intended for a play I didnt write and subsequently, because I rather cared for it, given to the play I did write was first produced in Scarborough in 1972. At that time, I remember, I was becoming increasingly fascinated by the dramatic possibilities of offstage action. Not a new device, granted, but one with plenty of comic potential still waiting to be tapped. Very early on in my career as a dramatist I discovered that, given the chance, an audiences imagination can do far better work than any number of playwrights words. The offstage character hinted at but never seen can be dramatically as significant and telling as his onstage counterparts.

Offstage action is more difficult. Unless care is taken, if the dramatist chooses to describe rather than show his action, the audience can rapidly come to the conclusion that theyre sitting in the wrong auditorium. Thus, when I came to write Absurd Person and started by setting the action in Jane and Sidney Hopcrofts sitting room, I was halfway through the act before I realised that I was viewing the evening from totally the wrong perspective. Dick and Lottie were indeed monstrously overwhelming, hearty and ultimately very boring, and far better heard occasionally but not seen. By a simple switch of setting to the kitchen, the problem was all but solved, adding incidentally far greater comic possibilities than the sitting room ever held. For in this particular case, the obvious offstage action was far more relevant than its onstage counterpart.

As a footnote: since I was writing about parties and guests arriving, it also relieved me of the tedium of all that hallo-how-are-you-goodbye-nice-to-see-you business. Absurd Person, then, could be described as my first offstage action play. It is also, some critics have observed, a rather weighty comedy. Its last scene darkens considerably. I make no apologies for this. As Ive grown in confidence as a dramatist (confidence, that is, that I can get most of the techniques right most of the time), I have also grown in the conviction that I owe it to the characters Ive created to develop and therefore to a certain extent to dictate how a play should run.

Ive always had an aversion to comedies that rely upon natty, superimposed denouements in order to round off the evening. Why comedies should have to do this whereas dramas are allowed to finish as they like is beyond me. As a nation, we show a marked preference for comedy when it comes to playgoing, as any theatre manager will tell you. At the same time, over a large area of the stalls one can detect a faint sense of guilt that there is something called enjoyment going on. Should we, people seem to be asking, be sitting here laughing like this? Its to do with the mistaken belief that because its funny, it cant be serious which of course isnt true at all. Heavy, no; serious, yes.

It would therefore seem unwise to compound this guilt feeling by artificially resolving the play. In other words, it can be funny, but lets make it truthful. Absent Friends, first produced in Scarborough in 1974, followed The Norman Conquests, which to all intents and purposes was the end of my exploration of offstage action. Three plays, two of which were happening offstage simultaneously with the one onstage, were quite enough. Absent Friends was almost a drawing-in of forces. It was significant for me in several ways.

Its use of time, for one. The stage action matches real time almost second for second. Most plays have their own time span where hours or months can pass quite happily in the space of minutes. Absent Friends time span, being what it is, had the intended consequence of making the play far more claustrophobic, almost oppressive. Its single set, its small detailed action, helped. It is a play for a small intimate theatre where one can hear the actors breathing and the silences ticking away.

It was a terrifying risk when it was first produced. Id never pitched anything in quite such a low key before. Following this (with only the five short plays entitled Confusions between them) came the far more robust Bedroom Farce. This play has, I think, elements of both Absurd Person and Absent Friends in it. It has its moments of near farce and yet still contains elements of the claustrophobic maybe because its all in bedrooms. It is also the first time Ive made use, to quite such an extent, of the cross-cut device.

Jumping the action from bedroom to bedroom gives the play an added rhythm over and above what the dialogue normally provides. Again, Ive allowed the characters to progress, develop and resolve very much in their own way. Perhaps, as in my other plays, none of them finds instant happiness or sudden great self-insight. But at least they retain the dignity of resolving their own destinies. Alan Ayckbourn Scarborough 1976

First produced at the Library Theatre, Scarborough, in June 1972 and subsequently by Michael Codron at the Criterion Theatre, London, on the 4th July 1973, with the following cast: The play directed by Eric Thompson Settings by Alan Tagg Act I Sidney and Janes Kitchen. Last Christmas Act II Geoffrey and Evas Kitchen.

This Christmas Act III Ronald and Marions Kitchen. Next Christmas

SIDNEY and JANE HOPCROFTskitchen of their small suburban house. Last ChristmasAlthough on a modest scale, it is a model kitchen. Whilst not containing all the gadgetry, it does have an automatic washing machine, a fridge, an electric cooker and a gleaming sink unit. All these are contained or surrounded by smart formica-topped working surfaces with the usual drawers and cupboards. When the CURTAIN rises, JANE, a woman in her thirties, is discovered bustling round wiping the floor, cupboard doors, working surfacesin fact, anything in sightwith a cloth. When the CURTAIN rises, JANE, a woman in her thirties, is discovered bustling round wiping the floor, cupboard doors, working surfacesin fact, anything in sightwith a cloth.

She sings happily as she works. She wears a pinafore and bedroom slippers, but, under this, a smart new party dress. She is unimaginatively made up and her hair is tightly permed. She wears rubber gloves to protect her hands. As JANE works, SIDNEY enters, a small dapper man of about the same age. He has a small trimmed moustache and a cheery, unflappable manner.

He wears his best, rather old-fashioned, sober suit. A dark tie, polished hair and shoes complete the picture