I Am Shakespeare by Mark Rylance

I Am Shakespeare
Mark Rylance
Nick Hern Books
ISBN NO: 9781848422698
CAST: 6M 1F
TYPE: Full Length

The authorship of Shakespeare’s plays is something that has puzzled scholars for years. How could the son of an illiterate tradesman have written the greatest dramatic works the world has ever seen? Fortunately, I’m no scholar and it isn’t a question that has troubled me much. Shakespeare’s father was the richest man in Stratford- upon- Avon and could certainly have afforded to give his son a good education. Furthermore, I do not believe it is necessary to be a member of the aristocracy in order to write about them. Haven’t many of the world’s greatest artists come from humble beginnings?

Nevertheless it is a debate that has sold a lot of books and now celebrated Shakespearian actor, Mark Rylance, has used it as the subject of his first play.

The play is set in Frank’s Garage. Frank is a schoolteacher and obsessive researcher of the authorship question. From his garage he presents a weekly webcast Who’s There?; a live internet chat show that “dares to ask the question who really wrote the works of William Shakespeare?” Just as the show is about to begin, Barry, Frank’s neighbour calls in. Barry is, or rather was, a pop star who had one hit twenty years ago and now makes up jingles and investigates crop circles (sounds like Reg Presley of The Troggs to me). The show survives the disturbance caused by Barry’s search for guttering but when he sneaks out and telephones the show, pretending to be Derek Jacobi, (with a Scottish accent) it all starts to be a bit too much for Frank.

But things are about to get worse. The next visitor is someone who could claim to be a bit of an authority on the works of William Shakespeare: William Shakespeare himself. Somehow, through the magic of the internet, the bard has appeared in Frank’s garage and presents a very compelling argument. Frank is convinced. Of course Shakespeare wrote the plays himself. Now that Frank can see this, no one will convince him otherwise. This is until Francis Bacon turns up.

Bacon adopts a curious stance: rather than try to convince Frank that it was he that wrote the plays, he argues that Shakespeare did not. However the next guest, Edward De Vere, is much more forthright in his claims; so forthright, in fact, that someone calls the police. Whilst the police sergeant draws parallels between the authorship question and the identity of Jack the Ripper the arrival of yet another guest presents yet another argument. Mary Sidney claims that the bard was not one person – that the plays were actually written by a pool of writers but, and this is the point, does it matter? Surely it is the plays that are important, not the identity of who wrote them.

As if to emphasise this point the play concludes with the police sergeant returning in order to arrest Shakespeare and demands to know which one is he. Having just seen a clip from the film I Spartacus the cast and if they are game, the audience, are all inspired to declare “I am Shakespeare!”

There is a lot about this script that annoys me. It is littered with author’s notes which even Mark Rylance admits he cannot understand. He also admits that it is too long and suggests lines that might be cut. Why present a play for publication that you believe to be imperfect? If it weren’t for who the author was any publisher would have rejected it; which would be a tragedy as this is a very funny play indeed: a delight from start to finish which should have an audience roaring with laughter and joyfully participating in the conclusion. A remarkable first play that deserves to earn Mark Rylance a reputation as a writer to match the one he has an actor.

Egusi Soup by Janice Okoh

Janice Okuh
Nick Hern Books
ISBN NO: 987184842711
CAST: 2M 3F
TYPE: Full Length

Mrs Anyia is sitting on a suitcase in an attempt to get it closed. Her daughter, Grace, is telling her that she will have to take something out – leave something behind. “What can we leave?” asks Mrs Anyia, “The flowers? Allow your father to lie in a bare grave?” You see, the Anyia’s are packing for a trip to Nigeria to attend a memorial service for John, Mrs Anyia’s husband, who died a year ago.

The items that Mrs Anyia deem essential for her trip, which include a car steering wheel and an electricity generator, provide much comedy in the opening moments of what promises to be a warm, family play. Soon the other daughter, Anne, arrives from New York where she is “the big barristah” bringing with her gifts indicative of her relative wealth, but without the one thing her mother was hoping for she might bring with her – a husband.

As a family friend, Pastor Emmanuel from the Celestial Church of Christ, prays for Anne that she might find a good man in Nigeria whilst they are there, we see the differences in the life that Anne now leads compared to that of her family back in England.

This clash of cultures is the theme that runs through the play. Pastor Emmanuel declares that a woman without a man is like Egusi Soup without the egusi and, as egusi is a type of seed, this could be a declaration of, not only his opinion of women, but also his intentions towards Mrs Anyia.

In many ways this play is quite a traditional comedy. We get the warmth promised in the early scenes tempered with the conflict the clash of cultures but, whilst I found Egusi Soup reasonably satisfying, I could have done with more spice.

The Last Of The Housemanns by Stephen Berresford

The Last of the Housemanns
Stephen Berresford
Nick Hern Books
ISBN NO: 9781842422520
CAST: 3M 3F
TYPE: Full Length

Judy Housemann is a sixties dropout. Now in her own sixties she lives in a once beautiful art deco house on the Devon coast with celebrities for neighbours who were once friends. As she recovers from an operation she gathers her family around her and holds court wearing a Snoopy nightdress.

Nick and Libby are concerned that their mother is planning to sell the house, something they regard as their inheritance. Their father has intended to change his will, to cut out Judy all together, but he died before the solicitor arrived and Libby has noticed letters from local estate agents amongst the post.

There are some good early pointers to the type of people we are dealing with. When Libby tells her brother that she has been worried about him he replies with an infuriating “Don’t be” but offers no reassurance that there is nothing for her to worry about.

Libby’s daughter, Summer, is developing a teenage interest in Daniel, the son of a neighbour who comes to use Judy’s swimming pool, and the cast is completed by Peter, a doctor, who seems to be interested in both Judy and Libby.

The most dysfunctional of families, the Houesmanns seem set on a path of self-destruction; over a period of several months, through a haze of all day drinking, these leftovers from the revolutionary ideal have become trapped by their desire for a bohemian lifestyle; they have become imprisoned by the desire to be free; their pursuit of free love has cost them dear. Finally, when Judy dies, Libby scatters her ashes on the lawn. Have we really seen the last of the Housemanns?

Stephen Berresford’s first play was performed by a star cast including Julie Waters and Rory Kinnear but I feel that even they must have struggled with a script that lacks direction and fails to give each of the characters a distinct voice. However, there is promise and, with the author already under commission from the National Theatre, it will be interesting to see what the future brings.

Ignorance/Jahiliyyah by Steve Waters

Ignorance/Jahiliyyah
Steve Waters
Nick Hern Books
ISBN NO: 9781848422957
CAST: 3M 2F
TYPE: Full Length

Sayyid Qutb was born in Egypt in 1906. The son of a politically active landowner Qutb was critical of the way religion had such influence on politics and how schools neglected academic study in favour of religion in his country. In 1949 he went to study in America and this was to have a major influence on his thinking. He was shocked by the lack of faith, the materialism and the level of promiscuity. He returned to Egypt and joined the Muslim Brotherhood and became later Head of Propaganda. In 1966 he was executed for his part in the assassination of the Egyptian president Gamel Abdel Nasser.

In Steve Water’s play Philip Mitchell, a professor at a London university, is writing a book about Qutb. He enters his office with the intention of eating lunch but is surprised to find a student waiting for him. This is Layla, a young student from Egypt who is in London to study under Professor Mitchell. She is in his office because she wants to be under his supervision instead of the professor to whom she is currently assigned, Dr Nassir Al-Malaki, who describes Mitchell as “an apologiser for terror”. Layla and Professor Mitchell are wary of each other, their motives are unclear, but both seem to want something that they believe the other can provide.

The action then moves from present day London to Greesley, Colorado in 1949 where Qutb began his American studies. In the college refectory Wayne and Myrna are eating lunch when Qutb joins them and asks to be passed the condiments. The epitome of politeness Wayne tells Qutb that he has made a mistake: international students are required to sit together in the atrium.

The opening scenes of the play are promising. The relationships between Professor Mitchell and Layla in London and Myrna and Qutb in Colorado begin to develop, influenced by an odd mixture of goodwill, mistrust and, as the title of the play suggests, ignorance. However, as the play continued, I found the motivation behind Professor Mitchell and Layla’s posturing quite difficult to fathom and something of a distraction from the more interesting narrative of Qutb’s radicalisation in America.

The thing that I love about theatre is that nothing is taboo and Steve Waters is obviously not afraid to write about sensitive subjects. However, I think that Ignorance/Jahiliyyah perhaps tries too hard to be abstruse and, as a result, is quite hard work.

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Halcyon Days by Deirdre Kinahan

Halcyon Days
Deirdre Kinahan
Nick Hern Books
ISBN NO: 9781842423015
CAST: 1M 1F
TYPE: Full Length

PLAY OF THE MONTH – JUNE 2013

We are in the conservatory of a nursing home in Dublin. Sean, 72, sits alone with his thoughts. He is still alone when Patricia enters because, though she chats away, Sean doesn’t even acknowledge her existence. Not until he hears the tea trolley and this seems to bring him to life.

Patricia is a few years younger than Sean and is quite a feisty woman who has retained her appetite for good looking men. She thinks that she has heard of Sean. The two go round the houses for a while, trying to think of any mutual friends that they could have, before Sean reveals that he is an actor and has appeared in many films. Patricia googles him at her first opportunity.

Over time we witness a burgeoning relationship. Sean is prone to disappearing into his own little world and becomes easily confused, whilst Patricia is not quite as sprightly as she imagines herself to be, but there is a certain chemistry and we find ourselves warming to them both and wanting to know them better.

They seem to be getting on famously but then Patricia oversteps the mark. Misreading the signals she kisses Sean with passion. He is appalled. “You’re old”, he says, “you’re a woman!”, he then recovers himself to tell her that he has a love: Tom.

Tom doesn’t visit any more. In a heartbreaking scene Sean describes how they have become incompatible. Sean has become old; they are no longer on the same wavelength. Patricia is angry on Sean’s behalf but it is his acceptance which makes it so sad. Then, just when it seems that the mutual support that they are able to provide each other will bring their lives some meaning, Patricia is gone. We end as we began. Sean is alone again.

Halcyon Days is a touching comedy drama which never becomes over sentimental. The comedy is not at the expense of the characters but, rather, we get the sense that we are laughing with them. For example, when Sean tells Patricia that he goes for a rest after breakfast, she asks him what he is resting from. His reply, that he doesn’t know, seems to amuse him as much as it does us. In all, I have no hesitation in recommending this script to any society looking for a play with two excellent roles for older performers.

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Chalet Lines by Lee Mattinson

Chalet Lines
Lee Mattinson
Nick Hern Books
ISBN NO: 97818484822674
CAST: 5F
TYPE: Full Length

Butlins, Skegness: chalet No 12. Abigail arranges sticks of Juicy Fruit chewing gum to form a piano keyboard and launches into a verse of Elton John’s Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me. She quickly sweeps the chewing gum away when her sister Jolene enters and has the best opening line that I have read in a long time – but not one I can repeat in these pages.

These grown up sisters are at Butlins to celebrate their nana Barbara’s 70th birthday. The family have come to Butlins, Skegness: chalet No 12, for their holiday every year since 1961 and Barbara is hoping for a lavish, if not very sophisticated, celebration. Barbara’s daughter and mother to the two sisters, Loretta, is knocking back the Cava in an attempt to get the party started whilst they await the arrival of Barbara’s other daughter, Paula. As the drink flows, everything starts to unravel. Old arguments are revived, tension builds and Abigail is not in a party mood. But this isn’t Abigail’s party. It is Barbara’s party and it will not start for her until Paula arrives – if she ever arrives.

With humour that would make an ardent fan of Mrs Brown’s Boys blush, Chalet Lines lurches from one lewd topic to the next. There is little to like about this dysfunctional family and the author has failed to create convincing characters with enough depth to make us wonder what heartache lies behind the viciousness. As a result, when we go back in time to Barbara’s wedding day, I cannot imagine the audience having a lot of sympathy for her, even though she is clearly being forced into a marriage against her will.

There is a naivety to the script that raises questions about the author’s understanding of his chosen subject, whilst the story feels like a collision of ideas rather than a journey. The climax comes when Abigail, the “normal” one, announces that she is leaving a husband that everyone thinks is perfect. She is the only one who seems to have got it together, but Abigail’s marriage is over, and so is the play. To be brutally honest, I share her relief.

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55 Days by Howard Brenton

55 Days
Howard Brenton
Nick Hern Books
ISBN NO: 9781842422287
CAST: 13M 2F with doubling
TYPE: Full Length

In 1648 London witnessed a military coup. After parliament voted against trying King Charles I on charges of treason, an army gathered in Hyde Park and prepared to make their move on Westminster. However, one man was missing. The question on everyone’s lips at the start of Howard Breton’s play is “Where is Oliver Cromwell?” The answer is Pontefract, though his reasons for being there are unclear. The threat from the Scots, still loyal to the king, is negligible but Cromwell seems hesitant about making the journey south, claiming that he is waiting for God’s word. Eventually he asks Lord Fairfax to order him to go. Lord Fairfax obliges.

Meanwhile, on the Isle of Wight, Charles I is playing bowls. In a display of arrogance that we will see a lot more of before the end of the play, the King freely admits that his promise to parliament that he would abolish bishops was a lie intended to get the Presbyterians to vote for him. If he were to be restored to his position of head of the church, the bishops would remain and it is the Presbyterians that would be thrown into prison.

The extremists call for Charles I to be beheaded but Cromwell wants a compromise: a country that retains the monarchy but where to power lies with parliament. Charles I will have none of this and, when he is eventually brought to court to face charges of treason, his response is to demand on what authority is he being tried. What lawful authority? Even Cromwell questions whether a king can be tried for treason against himself but, in a secret meeting between the two, Charles I’s arrogance is his undoing.

With such a large number of characters, 55 Days is surely it beyond the means of most amateur groups and the story is so complex it can be quite hard work but, at its heart, is a compelling courtroom drama that gives us a glimpse into a remarkable period in Britain’s history.

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The Hound Of The Baskervilles by Steven Canny and John Nicolson

The Hound of the Baskervilles
Steven Canny and John Nicholson from the story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Nick Hern Books
ISBN NO: 9781848422421
CAST: 3M
TYPE: Full Length

PLAY OF THE MONTH – JANUARY 2012

Patrick Barlow’s adaptation of John Buchan’s The 39 Steps has been a global success and here we see another piece of classic literature getting the spoof treatment. However, it would be unfair to accuse Canny and Nicholson of bandwagon jumping. Their version of The Hound of the Baskervilles was first performed at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in 2007 two years after The 39 Steps received its first performance at the same venue but, although The 39 Steps was by this time playing in New York, it had not yet become a worldwide hit.

Nevertheless, it is hard not to draw comparisons. The formula is the same: a small cast play multiple characters in a very fast paced comedy that is based on a story that will already be familiar to a large number of the audience. But, whereas The 39 Steps is Pythonesque in its humour, stiff upper-lippedness being the key to much of the comedy, The Hound of the Baskervilles is more reminiscent of the gloriously surreal TV show The Mighty Boosh.

In the original production the actor who played, amongst others, Sherlock Holmes was Spanish, and the script was written to accommodate this. The authors have included some alternative lines for him, but personally I prefer the Spanish version.

As the house lights dim the play stops before it has even started. Actor 3 is prostrate on the stage, playing the part of the deceased Sir Charles Baskerville, when Actor 2 rushes on halting the performance because they have neglected to make an important safety announcement. Anyone who had come to the theatre expecting a straight play is put right within seconds and even given the opportunity to leave. “Don’t worry: no one will look at you.” assures Actor 2 before introducing the actor who will be Sherlock Holmes who greets us with a polite “Buenas Nochas”.

This is a silly beginning to a very silly play, but I’m not complaining. Silly is good. Silly is very good. Whilst they have a lot of fun spoofing the original story, I think my favourite moment comes immediately after the interval when the actors read out a tweet that a member of the audience has supposedly sent to Twitter. They are so incensed by the comment that they decide that they will perform act one again, which they do at a breakneck speed in a couple of minutes. Then it is on with the story and straight back to the moor and the unravelling of the mystery that surrounds the ancient curse of the Hound of the Baskervilles. Watson complains about the complexity of it all but as he muses on “Rare moths, Brazilian identities, wives pretending to be sisters. We’re lost in an incestuous, South America, menagerie of intolerable dead ends.” he need not despair. The answers lie in the portraits on the wall of the snooker room and before very long the perpetrator of the heinous crimes on the moor is, quite literally, sunk.

When I directed The 39 Steps it was the highlight of everything that I have done so far in amateur theatre. I’d love to repeat that success but always imagined that I would steer clear of anything that was similar. However, having read this script I am tempted. Very tempted!

The Haunting by Hugh Janes. Adapted from Charles Dickens.

The Haunting
Hugh Janes – adapted from several stories by Charles Dickens.
Nick Hern Books
ISBN NO: 9781848422155
CAST: 2M 1F
TYPE: Full Length

This is a play inspired by an event that happened to the author’s uncle. Whilst visiting an old manor house to acquire some books for his antiquarian book shop, a woman appeared and observed him at his work. When she then disappeared without a sound Hugh Janes’ uncle was convinced that he had seen a ghost. This event planted the idea and the author turned to Charles Dickens to help it bloom.

The play opens with David, a young book dealer, asleep in a wing chair in the study of a dusty old house. He is woken by Lord Gray who enters the room illuminating it with an oil lamp. David’s weariness is due to the long journey from London which was delayed during the final leg when a woman threw herself in front of the carriage, scaring the horses. She begged David not to go to the house claiming that she knew the “secret of the tree”

Lord Gary assures David that there is nothing that should cause alarm and leaves him to his sleep so that business can commence in the morning. Odd, though, that he looks the door. Odder, still, is the voice of a woman who cannot be seen pleading to David to help her.

The following day there are more strange occurrences but Lord Gray will hear nothing of David’s stories of books hurling themselves of shelves and he dismisses ghostly sounds as nothing more than ordinary domestic noises made to seem unnatural by an over active imagination. He even claims not to see a young woman in a tattered bridal gown sitting in the wing chair, but when he learns of David’s connection with a woman from his own family’s past he finds that he cannot ignore the evidence of his eyes and ears any longer.

There are things to admire in this script. David’s impertinent humour provides light relief and is neatly explained once we learn of his connection with Lord Gray but, for a production to be successful, the audience would have to buy in to it (or enter into the spirit, if you will forgive the pun). This will require the special effects to be performed with great precision and the cast to react to them in a way that seems genuine. Five Dickens stories make up this play and, at times, I felt I could see the joins, but nevertheless Hugh James has produced a script that could provide the basis of a spooky night at the theatre. It is up to the director and cast to make it work.

No Romance by Nancy Harris

No Romance
Nancy Harris
Nick Hern Books
ISBN NO: 9781848421615
CAST: 3M 4F
TYPE: Full Length

No Romance consists of three stories with a common theme. In the first we find Laura looking slightly silly in her sister’s bridesmaid dress which is two sizes too small for her. She is supposed to look medieval – Knights of the Round Table sort of thing – but when she tries to enhance her look with a wand she looks even more ridiculous. She is at Gail’s flat-cum-studio for a photographic shoot. Inspired by a saucy blog on the internet she wants to create a portfolio of erotic photos depicting scenes from classic literature and has turned to her old school friend, now a professional photographer, to do the shoot. Laura’s motivation seems a bit obscure at first but then it all comes pouring out. She wants to give her partner a present for his birthday and thinks a set of naughty pictures of herself is just the thing. It all sounds a bit pathetic but the author has shown real skill in just getting us to the stage when we are about to condemn Laura when she reveals that she has found a lump. She has cancer. She is thirty-five and fears she is going to lose a breast.

But this is not a play about cancer or naughty pictures: it is about relationships. Laura is going doing to photos as a leaving present for her partner. She doesn’t want him to have to look after her. Gail, meanwhile, has broken up with her partner and wryly muses on the nature of modern relationships. When you just live with someone there is no wedding dress to rip up when it all breaks down. No expensive present(s) to destroy. All she could do was smash a coffee cup and de-friend her partner on facebook.

If the play had ended there I would be singing its praises but there are two stories to go yet. The next story is fully of anger: mainly Joe’s. He is in a funeral parlour and his anger is directed at his daughter far away in Australia. His mother lies in a coffin and the daughter is taking her clothes off and posting pictures of herself on the internet. “I hope you are happy. You’ve finally killed your grandmother.” he tells her.

But the photos are only of her larking about in a wet t-shirt with a few friends. We soon learn that Joe’s anger comes from his own sexual insecurities. In the funeral parlour, with his mother lying in the coffin, Joe’s wife takes a pair of stockings out of her bag. They are Joe’s. He ordered them from a website that sells used ladies’ underwear to men like Joe. He denies it. It was a mistake. What is his wife doing opening his post anyway? But there is more. She has seen emails to him from women with names like Sandy and Suki and he pays for all this on his credit card. There is plenty of humour as Joe becomes increasing desperate to lie his way out of the situation but we are also reminded of the grim reality of the business of sex.

The final tale begins with Michael lowering his eighty-year-old mother, Peg, into a brand new state of the art wheelchair. His twelve year old son, Johnny, is of little help and Peg is far from happy. It isn’t the wheelchair that makes her unhappy; it is why it was bought. So that she can go into a home.

With his father out of the room Peg tries first to frighten, then to bribe, Johnny into helping her out of the chair. He won’t help her so instead she tells him stories no twelve year old would want to hear from his grandmother. How, as a young woman, she borrowed a pair of silk stocking from her sister as a treat for her husband but all it earned her was a punch in the face. How she once went off with her husband’s best friend, Jack, and when she returned the next day she wasn’t even asked where she’d been. Finally she tells of how Jack went off and married a German woman and that he was the only person that her husband really loved.

I have to admire the way the author delves into the secret lives of her characters and lays bare their fears and longings, but I could scream at her for the way the play ends. Most people would see it coming a mile off and it is such a letdown after the beautifully told stories that take us to that point.