- February 2009
‘The foreigners will pack up and leave to go home. Others will read about it in the papers or hear a two minute spot on the television. Are we worth two minutes of someone’s time?’
New writer Bryan Oliver presents us with a moving tale of three women subjected to the horrors of an ethically divided society. Through the mode of retrospective storytelling we are introduced to slices of a shocking reality that becomes increasingly identifiable as a depiction of those tragic events that we all hear about in our lives, but which few of us actually see and recognise as real. Night Breath takes us through a heartrending emotional journey at the end of which we are forced to question whether the displaced stories we hear about in the news are indeed worth more than the two minutes’ thought we give them.
- February 2009
- February 2009
Estragon and Vladimir are waiting for Godot. The arrival of Pozzo and Lucky helps to pass the time, but they agree "it would have passed anyway".
Beckett's supreme modern classic, once described as a play in which "nothing happens – twice", is as striking, poignant and avant-garde as it was fifty years ago. Universal and timeless, the dazzling, lyrical language captures a perfect blend of humour and tragic insight.
Ahead of Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart's production, this remarkable black comedy comes to Cambridge in a striking interpretation which demands to be seen… …if only to pass the time.
- February 2009
This year's Fletcher Players Freshers' show is a brand new comedy by Corpus' own Footlights star Mark Fiddaman.
- December 2008
King's Drama is proud to present its first ever production!
'Never Swim Alone' is a bizarre, funny yet unsettling play by Canadian playwright Daniel MacIvor, which takes place as a surreal competition by two men, Frank and Bill, who know each other too well. No ones knows what the competition is about, and the referee interrupts whenever she feels like it. But as the play unfolds, the deeper purpose of their rivalry emerges... A beach. A bay. A point. Two men. A girl. Their past. Who is the first man? Who is the man with the gun?
- December 2008
‘Both thought-provoking and funny Macbett is a play for our time’
Writing during the Cold War, Eugene Ionesco, the master of absurdism, transforms Shakespeare's sinister tragedy of ambition into a surreal and darkly comic tale for the modern audience. His lively parody is at once a fantastic satire and an angry commentary on 20th century life. Fusing elements of the theatre of the absurd and commedia dell'arte, Macbett will expose the corruptibility of the Everyman in a harrowingly dark, yet sharply comic production.
- December 2008
The Revived Emmanuel Dramatics Society presents:
MACBETT by Eugene Ionesco
Corpus Christi Playroom 2nd-6th December 7.00pm
‘Both thought-provoking and funny Macbett is a play for our time’
Writing during the Cold War, Eugene Ionesco, the master of absurdism, transforms Shakespeare's sinister tragedy of ambition into a surreal and darkly comic tale for the modern audience. His lively parody is at once a fantastic satire and an angry commentary on 20th century life. Fusing elements of the theatre of the absurd and commedia dell'arte, Macbett will expose the corruptibility of the Everyman in a harrowingly dark, yet sharply comic production.
Director Celeste Dring cad57 Producer: Charlotte Sewell cas89
- November 2008
- November 2008
It is the year 1663. London's not yet burning and the plague is yet to come - and women, for the first time, take centre stage. Women are on the frontline of theatre - dancing, pouting, sighing, dying every night for a lascivious horde of cheering on-lookers. Up in the box, a man in glittering robes smiles and laughs. It is the King. But who will he have - and who will he keep? Enter into the world of PLAYHOUSE CREATURES, where comedy and tragedy mingle, where a host of women, risking all, try to find the way to freedom and happiness through theatre. Behind the stage make-up, cracks are starting to form. Who will swim, and who will sink in this alluring but treacherous world?
- November 2008
It's EXTREME. It's TERRIFYING. It's MILDLY PERILOUS. Buckle your seatbelts. Pull on your crash-helmets. Fill out your risk assessments. And welcome to the brand new sketch show from the pens of seasoned Cambridge comedians Will Hensher, David Isaacs, Lucien Young and Tom Ovens. This is the fast-acting, long-lasting, zero-calorie show which guarantees all-year-round protection and cleans, even beneath the rim. Ladies and gentlemen, we present SCENES OF MILD PERIL. Bring your own defibrillators.
- November 2008
Dangerously close to the centre of a new-found and fragile political stability, in a society exhausted by decades of civil war, stands a man physically deformed and psychologically scarred, raised in a warzone, incapable of empathy - but overpoweringly charismatic. A chorus of women whose lives Richard has destroyed can only look on, prophesying their nation’s destruction, as he manipulates, seduces and kills his way to the only thing he believes can restore his disfigured sense of self-worth: the crown. Discover the disturbing power of Shakespeare’s first great anti-hero.
- November 2008
Frank is an English professor with the Open University. He has taken the job for the money, drinks, and is a terrible teacher. Rita is a loud, Liverpudlian hairdresser- and she wants to learn ‘everything’. When Rita tumbles- literally- into Frank’s office, an unlikely relationship develops between the two. Comic, yet at times deeply poignant, Willy Russell’s “Educating Rita” follows the developing friendship between the couple, highlighting the issues of class divide, human relationships, and the value of education. Whilst Frank may be the educated one, it is clear that Rita has a thing or two to teach him.
- November 2008
In Verona, best friends Proteus and Valentine see themselves as experts in love. Yet when they travel to Milan, Proteus is so attracted to Valentine’s beloved, Silvia that he is willing to do anything to win her hand. This is all news to his beloved, Julia, who has travelled to Milan in disguise to find him. Add in some scene-stealing servants, an over-protective father, a gang of bandits and a mangy dog called Crab and you’ve got The Two Gentlemen of Verona, one of Shakespeare’s most youthful comedies. In matters of love and war is all really fair?
- November 2008
The Corpus Christi drama society The Fletcher Players present “Dead Woman Walking” a new comedy by Jack Green. Unlikely topic for a comedy: death. You die and nobody mourns for you, nobody misses you... What an opportunity! Instead of the eternal afterlife, you find yourself a ghost on a mission. An adventurous romp through haunted houses, motels and car chases. A dead woman walking, let loose to torment her hapless victims; beginning a journey that leads all to strange, new places. And did I mention? It’s very funny
- October–November 2008
Troy has fallen to the Greeks, and Hecuba, its beloved queen, is widowed and enslaved. She mourns her once great city, and the death of her husband, but when fresh horrors emerge, her grief turns to white-hot rage, and a lust for revenge.
A savage indictment of the brutal devastation of war, Hecuba is brought to life in this thrillingly visceral new version by Frank McGuinness.
- June 2008
'Hell is - other people.' In one of the 20th Century's most prominent and philosophical plays we see how three intriguing characters; a lesbian, a woman desperate for the touch of a male, and a man agonised by his cowardice; each face an eternity of cruel self-realisation. Set against the eloquent backdrop of a Second Empire style drawing room, Sartre's haunting depiction of Hell manages to stimulate the audience's thoughts, as we are forced to question our ideas on the meaning of life.
- June 2008
"But I remember you. I remember you dead. I remember you lying dead." "Old Times" exemplifies Pinter's sober skills in alienation, breakdown and silence. The intimate reunion of Kate and Anna after twenty years becomes a nightmarish revelation of all things past, in which then and now, love and power, and memory and fact become entangled and destructive. Anna engages in a vicious combat with Kate's husband Deeley for the control of Kate's mind. For them, the house becomes hell; for the audience, the theatre becomes threatening. Things fall apart until a terrible conclusion, which captures the tragic futility of their existence. After the horror created by old times, the characters can only enact Wittgenstein's maxim: "that of which we cannot speak, must be passed over in silence."
- May 2008
"Things are improving - less rocks are thrown - less cars completely overturned - less shots fired - there are fewer emergencies than there used to be - but all the same, there's an emergency on right now."
A group of people sit telling stories. Who are these storytellers? Actors improvising? Executives at a script conference? It is never clear if the storylines they are narrating are real events or simply imagined, events being roughed out for an unknown purpose. Crimp presents a world where happiness is sacrificed for a nice handmade table, truth for easy lies and we lock our children up when the real horror is really within. This is not an imagined world but our world today, where we are all content in our ignorance of a lifestyle threatened by violence and unspecified ‘emergencies’.
- May 2008
'You vicious little bitch! You think you can come in here with your political correctness and destroy my life?'
'I don't want revenge. I want UNDERSTANDING!'
An avucular professor; a naive student. An older man; a younger woman. Sounds simple enough, doesn't it? David Mamet's OLEANNA pulls apart the stereotypes of gender and class to reveal two people, trapped together in an office, united only by their mutual hatred... and a longing for understanding. OLEANNA explores whether the sexes can ever really understand each other - and even if they do, do they only really want revenge?
- May 2008
The strangely pale-faced child of a gypsy whore, Scaramouche was always fated to be a clown. But from his birth, at midnight on New Year's Eve 1899 in a dingy Trinidad knocking shop, his life has been an odyssey through extraordinary adventures, crumbling empires and the darkest episodes on the 20th century.
Now, as the champagne corks fly on millenium eve, Scaramouche is about to give his last and most important performance. He steps out from the circus ring, peels away his outer disguises and reveals the loves, brutalities, ecstasies and tragedies that created the seven white masks of Scaramouche Jones.
- May 2008
- May 2008
"...It seems - uncanny. It makes me feel we're - we're all just waiting for something..."
The trenches of the Somme. A group of officers prepares for the greatest German attack of the war. Commanding Officer Stanhope drinks to forget. Hibbert feigns illness. New boy Raleigh thinks it's all a jolly exciting game. Each man has his own coping mechanism, and each takes its toll on the already strained relationships in a confined and claustrophobic space as the pressure builds and the waiting becomes harder and harder to bear.
A smash hit in the West End, this tense and intricately realised portrait of a few days in the lives of a few men is a poignant testament to the courage and resilience of humanity under the most horrendous conditions imaginable.
- April–May 2008
"Now the second thing you will do for me is visit my bedroom twice a week – Tuesdays and Thursdays will do very nicely I think, at midnight. There you will beat me for half an hour with a clothes hanger or a wet towel and afterwards run up and down on my bottom with cricket boots. I should like that."
Dominic Clarke has a terrible secret: he has been having a gay love affair with one of his thirteen-year-old pupils. Worse still, he has been found out by Herbert Brookshaw, a calculating old-hand of the school who is determined to beat Clarke to the headmastership by any means necessary.
What follows is a vicious and bitter power struggle between Clarke and Brookshaw, involving blackmail, bizarre sexual practices, religious dogma and crunchy peanut butter.
Stephen Fry wrote 'Latin!' in 1980 whilst at Cambridge, specifically for the Corpus Playroom. The play was a resounding success and went on to win the Edinburgh Fringe First award. Now it's making a very special return to the Playroom...
- April–May 2008
"There are women who believe all men are rapists. I don't believe that because if I did believe that how - as a woman - could I go on living with the label 'victim'? Because I am not a victim - oh no - that's not a part I'm willing to play - believe me."
Far away a battle rages and an entire city is turned to dust. Amelia can't sleep. She waits for news of her husband. He's a great General and this seems to be a decisive victory. But when the motives for war start to look disturbingly personal, his wife becomes desperate to hold on to his love.
Martin Crimp's new play takes Sophocles' ancient story of marriage and violence - The Trachiniae - and propels it into a modern world of political hypocrisy and emotional terrorism.
- March 2008
"Be careful - if you breathe, it breaks."
Laura, crippled by shyness, is as fragile as the collection of glass animals she spends her days caring for.
Tom, her brother, dreams of escaping the harsh fluorescent lights of the shoe factory, writing poems on shoeboxes when no one is watching.
And Amanda, their mother, trapped by memories of her glamorous youth, anticipates the arrival of Laura's first "Gentleman Caller", a visitor from the real world with the power to shatter all their illusions.
- March 2008
The world's greatest physicist, Johann Wilhelm Möbius, is in a madhouse, haunted by recurring visions of King Solomon. He is kept company by two other equally deluded scientists: one who thinks he is Einstein, another who believes he is Newton. It soon becomes evident, however, that these three are not as harmlessly lunatic as they appear. Whilst twisting and turning, the play additionally delivers a healthy, and rather dark, dose of farce. It's macabre, melodramatic, mad, and all with murdered nurses galore...
- February–March 2008
FREEDOM OR A LIFE-SENTENCE. WHERE WILL YOUR CONVICTION LEAD YOU? Richard's life went so wrong. He was a happily married man until his conviction drove his life apart. Who would have thought that a fur coat could cause so much damage? A ruined marriage, a strained relationship with his daughter and a desperate need for love and self-worth. Conviction explores the dark emotions underpinning political activism. By the end, you'll be presented with a pressing dilemma: what does conviction really mean? WHERE DOES YOUR CONVICTION REALLY LIE?
- February–March 2008
‘I’m burning your child. I’m burning the baby…’ Returning from honeymoon with her dull academic husband, aristocratic Hedda finds herself trapped by bourgeois domesticity. This is a world she cannot tolerate but lacks the courage to escape. She is driven only by her own deadly talent for boredom and destruction. Hedda fantasises about setting blonde hair on fire. She plays with loaded pistols but aims at the sky. Over the next thirty six hours she will learn to use her weapons. HATS and the Fletcher Players present a new, pared down, visceral interpretation of Ibsen’s drawing room tragedy of frustration, moral cowardice and casual cruelty. There is blood on the writing desk and someone’s child in the grate. Will Hedda do the unspeakable?
- February 2008
'If I could grow six inches and be as fat as I am now I'd be really tall and thin.'
Jo wishes she could be the object of men's desires. Mary wishes she wasn't. Celia just wants to use the bathroom. Low Level Panic examines in detail the emotions and opinions of three 20-something flatmates in an inspiring journey through insecurity, self-consciousness, and bitterness, eased by an accompaniment of wit and entertaining jokes.
This one act play is typical of the late 80’s drama of London’s Royal Court Theatre, as it demonstrates the tribulations of these three young women dealing with the issues of personality, partying and pornography. The script offers a wide creative scope for both cast and crew, as the audience is transported from the familiar setting of a bathroom, to the more obscure places of the characters’ memories and thoughts. The combination of naturalistic interaction between the characters, and the more abstract monologues and soliloquies provide an excellent showcase of the actors’ talents, whereas the abrupt transformation from the realistic to the not-so-real affords a fantastic opportunity for the technical side of the production to shine through.
This engaging production with its mature humour will amuse a later evening audience, and will be sure to be a resounding success.
- February 2008
Everyone knows the Cindarella story. But what actually happens next? Can true love really be based on a shoe fetish? Our tale follows the farcical disintegration of the not-so-happy couple's marriage, helped by an homicidal fairy godmother, a desperate divorce lawyer, a stereotypically camp male personal assistant, and of course, the ugly sisters. With the paparazzi frantic for a scoop, it will take drastic measures for anyone to make it to Happily Ever After. Happily Ever After could be considered a deeply satirical take on love in today's celebrity obsessed culture, which seeks to challenge dramatical conventions. But that would be stretching it. It is, however, full of jokes and less than an hour long. So go on, dare a trip away from your TV and let us take you to a land not so far away!
- February 2008
Two conversations between two people in two places. They talk about lots of things. They don't talk about lots of things. But what is said is less important than that it's said. Or not said. How much can we really connect to each other through words alone? Cynical/idealistic, funny/sad, something/nothing is bound to get you talking. Which is kind of the point, really.
A new play by the award-winning author of Coat:
"Genuinely touching" - The Guardian
***** - The British Theatre Guide
- February 2008
In a drowsy Spanish courtyard, Marguerita recounts the mystery surrounding the death of her child. Meanwhile another mother is caught in a battle of wills with her daughter who has fallen in love with a girl. Bryony Lavery’s surreal and atmospheric play explores the threshold between love and oppression, past and present and the complexity of motherhood. As the old woman’s tale unfolds, we learn the darker secrets of her past and are forced to reconcile disgust and pity.
- February 2008
Winner of ‘Best Play’ at the 1987 National Student Drama Awards, American Eagle follows the eponymous superhero and his creators at Miracle Comics through the turbulent years of the twentieth century. Drawn up in the aftermath of Pearl Harbour, American Eagle is created by Bob Hickson, and editor Weissmuller, to reignite patriotism. Eagle must first fight Nazism, and is then forced by a series of editors, each with their own agenda, to battle Communism, and then lead the troops into Vietnam. But can the American Dream, and American Eagle, survive intact? The Cambridge premiere of the revised version of this play sees a small cast portray dozens of characters in an action-packed comic-book adventure!
- January–February 2008
“This is what you want. Is it? This is what you’re making me do. This is what you’re making me do to help you. To help you Louise! No more nice. You like bastards? You like a bastard do you?”
Mark and Louise, workmates, live together for two weeks in the aftermath of a nuclear explosion. Louise, the cute girl in the office, always thought Mark was quite sweet. Mark, from reprographics, always had a thing for Louise. Tins of chilli, Dungeons and Dragons and a knife: paramount until the bitter end. But After the End the story becomes a reality.
- January–February 2008
Spend time exploring the wonderful world of the Brothers Grimm, be entertained and enthralled by four cautionary tales and allow yourself to get sucked into the creativity of theatre and the wonders of the imagination. With talking sausages, rooms full of gold, heartbreak and a lute playing donkey these, more Grimm than fairy, tales are not to be missed.
- January 2008
Two of Chekhov's short farces. Perfect fare for a cold January evening.
"The Bear": Mrs. Popova has been in mourning for the last 12 months, ever since her husband died. The fact that he cheated on her is, perversely, a source of motivation for this. When she is rudely interrupted by Sminov, a bankrupt landowner who is calling in his debts, the tensions rise between these two uncompromising characters until breaking point.
"The Night before the Trial": Zaytsev arrives at an inn on a freezing night. He is due in court the next day, where he is to be put on trial for bigamy, fraud, and the attempted murder of a sporting goods manufacturer. If found guilty, he'll kill himself right there in the dock. Such thoughts of suicide evaporate when he catches sight of the lodger in the next room, but what can he do, with her husband also present?
