- June 2009
The city of Thebes is trying to recover after a gruesome civil war, and the new-crowned king Creon will do everything to keep the state under control. But there is one person that will not conform. Drawn by the majesty of death and her uncompromising devotion to her family, Antigone buries her brother. Some call what follows a deserved punishment; others a path to glory. But who is right? And are the living always more fortunate than the dead? Seamus Heaney’s translation of Sophocles’ tragedy breathes new life into one of the most compelling dramatic pieces of all time.
- June 2009
In an airless basement room, two hitmen await details of their next assignment. They’re a team from way back, but today something has disturbed their normally efficient routine. Unseen forces bear down on them in their precarious and darkly funny world. While increasingly bizarre orders keep arriving via the dumbwaiter serving hatch, the tension mounts as the comedy unfolds.
Pinter’s taut dialogue, some of Cambridge’s finest performers, and the claustrophobia of the atmospheric Corpus Christi Playroom all collide to create a visceral piece of freshly funny and striking theatre. Starring Ben E Kavanagh and Oliver Soden. Directed by Patrick Garety.
- May 2009
Anthony Neilson’s critically acclaimed play The Wonderful World of Dissocia dramatises an acute experience of mental ill health. Lisa Jones’ life has been out-of-sync for a year now, impaired by a sense of hopelessness that will not abate. Luckily, the answer is simple. The answer lies in The Wonderful World of Dissocia. Act one follows Lisa’s spectacular and hilarious journey through Dissocia in pursuit of an hour of her life that she has lost. While the starkly counter-posed act two returns an audience to the upright position and depicts Lisa’s treatment on an ordinary psychiatric ward. By turns uproarious and arresting, Dissocia is an ecstatic, carnivalesque experience that is simultaneously politically profound.
- May 2009
The dead are back, and angry, and they can’t get back to where they came from. The living are fed up, and wish the dead would just give up and go quietly back to where they came from. The comedy mounts as Elvira begins plotting to get her husband back – once and for all – and to put an entirely new meaning on the phrase, ‘Til death do us part…’
Charles Condomine, a successful novelist, wishes to learn about the occult for a novel he is writing, and he arranges for an eccentric medium, Madame Arcati, to hold a séance at his house. At the séance, she inadvertently summons Charles's first wife, Elvira, who has been dead for seven years. Only Charles can see or hear Elvira, and his second wife, Ruth, does not believe that Elvira exists until a floating vase is handed to her out of thin air. The ghostly Elvira makes continued, and increasingly desperate, efforts to disrupt Charles's current marriage. She finally sabotages his car in the hope of killing him so that he will join her in the spirit world, but it is Ruth rather than Charles who drives off and is killed. This sets off a hilarious chain of events involving ectoplasm, incredulity and much laughter.
Set in the late 30s, the plays embodies the quintessence of the English summer: elegance, sophistication, and just a hint of something nasty…
- May 2009
Excerpts from the winners of the Marlowe Masterclass competition, honed in a Masterclass led by Rebecca Lenkiewicz, will be performed in a Showcase at Soho Theatre for an invited audience of theatre professionals.
Performances, each lasting 10 minutes, written by:
Jennifer Boon Luke Butcher Josh Coles-Riley Emma Hogan Jessica Hyslop Iain Maitland Freddy Syborn
Please contact the Marlowe Masterclass & Writers' Rep, Nausikaä, for more information at marlowemasterclass@gmail.com
See www.marlowemasterclass.co.uk for biographies. weblogs and much more!
- March 2009
Stoppard does Love.
Henry is a successful playwright trying to write a play about the true nature of love. Does he even know what that is? What if joy and love in art is best reflected in pop music?
Henry and his wife Charlotte, their friends Max and Annie, and a jailed political activist named Brodie collide and their lives will never be the same.
Stoppard’s crackling and hilarious dialogue frames this deep exploration of love, fidelity, art and joy. When does motivation matter? Does form affect the content’s impact? And most of all, what is real?
- March 2009
Corpus playroom will be transported back to a Gothic wilderness courtesy of 'The Vampire', J. R. Planché's melodramatic masterpiece. 'Something more than human' haunts the Scottish highlands in this exuberant, sometimes ridiculous drama, where a voracious vampire and a beautiful virgin take their places amongst the craggy cliffs and disembodied voices which animate Planche's creepy yet comic creation. As Lady Bridget exclaims, "Mercy preserve us! I tremble all over!"
- 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.
