Damsels in Distress (plays)

Last updated

Damsels in Distress (trilogy)
Damsels in Distress (2001 play).jpg
Programme cover from touring version of SJT production
Written by Alan Ayckbourn
CharactersTroy Stephens / Sam Berryman / Justin Lazenby

Sorrel Saxon / Tracy Taylor / Julie-Ann Jobson

Kelly Butcher / Rosie Seymour / Paige Petite

Dan Endicott / Tommy Angel / Micky Rale

Leo Tyler / Maurice Whickett / Derek Jobson

Grace Page / Edna Stricken / Dee Jobson

Lynette Saxon / Annette Sefton-Wilcox / Arabella Lazenby
Date premiered24 May 2001 ( GamePlan ), 3 July 2001 ( FlatSpin ), 4 September 2001 ( RolePlay )
Place premiered Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough
Original languageEnglish
SubjectVarious
GenreVarious
SettingVarious flats, London Docklands, 2001
Official site
Ayckbourn chronology
Whenever
(2000)		 Snake in the Grass
(2002)

Damsels in Distress is a trilogy of plays written in 2001 by British playwright Alan Ayckbourn. The three plays, GamePlan , FlatSpin and RolePlay , were originally performed as a set by the Stephen Joseph Theatre Company (SJT). The plays were written to be performed by the same seven actors using the same set. Although the plays loosely shared some common themes, the three stories were independent of each other and unconnected.

Contents

This trilogy is considered Alan Ayckbourn's first major success of the 21st century. It also began a dispute between Ayckbourn and the West End.

Background

Damsels in Distress began as an experiment to revive the Stephen Joseph Theatre's repertory system. Throughout the theatre's time at its first two venues, plays had largely been staged on a repertory basis, with plays being chosen and written around the actors available. After the move to the theatre's current venue in 1996, however, the system largely ended (apart from the 10×10 season in 1998), with the theatre relying more on actors hired for single roles. Partly because of this, and partly because of the ongoing financial pressure on the theatre, in 2001 Ayckbourn chose to write a set of plays which could be performed by the same company of seven actors available at the time. This included three long-standing SJT performers (Robert Austin, Jacqueline King and Bill Champion), two recent additions (Alison Pargeter and Saskia Butler) and two newcomers (Beth Tuckey and Tim Faraday). [1] [2] [3]

It was originally planned for Damsels in Distress to be two plays, GamePlan and FlatSpin . Indeed, this remained the intention when GamePlan was premiered in May. [4] It was only during rehearsals for FlatSpin when Ayckbourn considered the "company" effect to take hold, and the idea for a third play started to emerge. [1] After getting agreement from the cast to take on a third play, it was written in the week after FlatSpin began performances, and the summer programme was rescheduled to include this play, RolePlay , late in the season. [2]

As well as sharing the same seven actors, the trilogy was also written to use the same set: a flat in the London Docklands, where Ayckbourn himself owns a flat. [3] Beyond that, there was no intentional link between the plays, and the only reason the name Damsels in Distress was chosen was that the plays all happened to include a female character in some sort of trouble. [1] However, there were nonetheless a number of common themes that arose from the plays' settings: flats owned by well-to-do Londoners who know little of who their neighbours are or what they do; and seedy vices left behind from London's old East End coming back to haunt them. [3] The plays also shared themes common to most Ayckbourn plays.

Characters

Each of the three plays has its own cast of seven characters. In the original production, the twenty-one characters were cast as follows: [2] [5] [6] [7]

Actor in original productionActor requiredGamePlanFlatSpinRolePlay
Bill ChampionMale, youngerTroy StephensSam BerrymanJustin Lazenby
Saskia ButlerFemale, youngerSorrel SaxonTracy TaylorJulie-Ann Jobson
Alison Pargeter Female, youngerKelly ButcherRosie SeymourPaige Petite
Tim FaradayMale, olderDan EndicottTommy AngelMicky Rale
Robert AustinMale, olderLeo TylerMaurice WhickettDerek Jobson
Beth TuckleyFemale, olderGrace PageEdna StrickenDee Jobson
Jacqueline King Female, olderLynette SaxonAnnette Sefton-WilcoxArabella Lazenby

Setting

All three plays are single-scene plays, written to use the same set of a flat in the London Docklands, although each play is set in a different flat. The set includes a living area, kitchen and balcony over the river, all of which have different functions in different plays. The plays were performed in the round for their original productions at the Stephen Joseph Theatre. However, in subsequent productions elsewhere they were re-staged for the proscenium.

The Plays

GamePlan

The first play, GamePlan, is the darkest of the three, and covers the theme of teenage prostitution – a theme far more contemporary than those often expected from Ayckbourn plays. The play centres on Lynette Saxon, a once-successful dotcom businesswoman now reduced to cleaning the offices she once managed, her 16-year-old daughter Sorrel, and Sorrel's friend, Kelly Butcher. Sorrel intends to support herself and her mother by setting herself up as a high-class call girl (inspired by a somewhat romanticised account from a former pupil), and enlists Kelly as her "maid". Sorrel is convinced she has everything worked out and does not see selling sex as a big deal. However, Sorrel's plan starts to unravel when her first client arrives, especially after he dies of a heart attack in her mother's flat.

FlatSpin

The second play, FlatSpin, is a comedy thriller. Rosie Seymour is an out-of-work actress openly desperate for a job and a man. She is house-sitting for a flat owned by a Joanna Rupelford, when a handsome stranger, Sam Berryman, arrives and eventually tells her she is the most beautiful woman he has ever met and asks her out on a date, even though he appears to have mistaken her for the flat's owner. Rosie, going along with this assumed identity, allows Sam back to the flat that evening to cook her dinner. The date is going extraordinarily well until Sam is suddenly called away, only for a couple of heavies to return with Sam later. It turns out that Sam, the heavies and the flat are all part of an elaborate drugs sting due to take place that evening. With Rosie having shown herself to the drug courier they intend to entrap, Rosie is talked into doing the sting herself.

RolePlay

RolePlay was the play written as the afterthought, but turned out to be the most successful play of the three. The play centres on a dinner party held by Justin Lazenby and Julie-Ann Jobson, where they intend to announce their engagement. Before the dinner begins, there are already signs of tension: Julie-Ann gets overly frantic about making the meal perfect for her parents (her father, it later turns out, is a right-wing bigot), and Justin's alcoholic mother is clearly going to arrive paralytic. However, the biggest complication turns out to be when Paige Petite climbs onto the balcony, on the run from her violent boyfriend. Trapped in the flat by her minder, Justin and Julie-Ann are forced to keep up appearances during the dinner whilst the stand-off is played out.

Productions

Programme cover for West End version of trilogy at Duchess Theatre Damsels in Distress London.jpg
Programme cover for West End version of trilogy at Duchess Theatre

GamePlan premiered at the Stephen Joseph Theatre on 24 May 2001, [5] followed by FlatSpin on 3 July 2001 [6] and RolePlay on 4 September 2001. [7] The production team for all three plays was:

The three plays then toured, [8] including a return to the Stephen Joseph Theatre to compensate for the earlier short run of RolePlay. The trilogy was chosen as the inaugural productions for the newly built Gala Theatre in Durham in January 2002. [9] [10]

The plays began a West End run at the Duchess Theatre on 7 September 2002, with the same cast and production team. [5] [6] [7] However, the success of RolePlay over led to play's producers, the Really Useful Group, gradually reducing the number of performances of the other two plays. [2] Finally, it was decided to stage only RolePlay during the week, with the other two staged only during the day on a Saturday as part of the whole trilogy. [11] This caused considerable upset amongst the cast [2] [3] and led to a long-standing rift with the West End in general.

All three plays have received further performances by other theatre companies since, but, so far, no professional theatre has attempted to re-stage the whole trilogy. [8]

Critical Reviews

Further details in review sections on individual GamePlan, FlatSpin and RolePlay pages.

GamePlan was reviewed first. The critics reacted positively to the concept of a return to repertory theatre, and the departure to more contemporary themes, although they were split on how good GamePlan was as a play. FlatSpin received relatively little attention as an individual play, with most critics choosing to review it as part of the set along with RolePlay. When RolePlay was reviewed, it received unanimous praise from the critics. The trilogy as a whole then received further praise throughout its tour and West End performances, with Michael Billington of The Guardian dubbing the cast "The Magnificent Seven". [12] FlatSpin was generally considered the weakest of the three, and RolePlay the strongest. [13]

Alison Pargeter won Best Newcomer in the Critics' Circle Theatre Awards for her roles of Kelly Butcher, Rosie Seymour and Paige Petite. [14]

West End dispute

The upset caused by the sidelining of GamePlan and FlatSpin in favour of RolePlay finally came to public attention in October 2002. Shortly after the end of the West End production, at the Orange World lecture at the Apollo Theatre, [11] Michael Billington asked Alan Ayckbourn about the state of the West End. [2] Ayckbourn responded by expressing his dissatisfaction with the commercial producers who, in his words, "condemned two of the parts to the dustbin," and said of the West End in general "If all we are looking for these days is one-shot plays with one big name in it, I don't want to be part of it." [15] This was widely reported as Alan Ayckbourn threatening to boycott the West End. [11] [15] [16]

Ayckbourn also heavily criticised the West End for casting cinema, pop and television stars instead of theatre actors, particularly their lack of voice projection. He singled out his harshest criticism for casting Madonna in David Williamson's Up for Grabs , saying "You might as well have put her on stage eating a plate of spaghetti and put a rope round her chair instead of putting her in a theatre where she wasn't at home and was struggling." [11]

Although a "boycott" was not what Ayckbourn said word-for-word, the effect was broadly the same. The following year, Ayckbourn suggested he might return to the West End on condition that plays were staged on his terms, and this was interpreted as a sign that his latest play, Sugar Daddies , would get a West End performance. [17] But this did not happen, and the closest performance to London was at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford. [18] In 2005, Private Fears in Public Places also omitted the West End from its run, instead choosing to perform at the Outer London venue of the Orange Tree Theatre, in Richmond. [19] [20] Ayckbourn has continued to criticise the West End frequently, and has said he does not expect to direct at the West End again (except, if asked, at the National Theatre where he spent a two-year sabbatical). [2]

In 2007, he relaxed the boycott to allow other directors to direct his "classic" plays in the West End again, although his moratorium on the recent plays remained, and Absurd Person Singular was performed at the Garrick Theatre. [21] The following year, he allowed The Norman Conquests to be revived at The Old Vic, which went to the length of re-staging the theatre in the round, as the play was originally intended. [22]

He finally allowed a return to the West End as a director with a revival of Woman in Mind starring Janie Dee. This revival, first staged at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in September 2008, ran in early 2009 at the Vaudeville Theatre, where the original London première was performed in 1986. [23]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alan Ayckbourn</span> English playwright (born 1939)

Sir Alan Ayckbourn is a prolific British playwright and director. He has written and produced as of 2024, 90 full-length plays in Scarborough and London and was, between 1972 and 2009, the artistic director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, where all but four of his plays have received their first performance. More than 40 have subsequently been produced in the West End, at the Royal National Theatre or by the Royal Shakespeare Company since his first hit Relatively Speaking opened at the Duke of York's Theatre in 1967.

Claire Skinner is an English actress, known in the United Kingdom for her television career, particularly playing Sue Brockman from the BBC television series Outnumbered. She is also known for her collaboration with director Mike Leigh on two of his films, Life is Sweet (1990) and Naked (1993).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adam Godley</span> English-American actor (b. 1964)

Adam N. Godley is an English-American actor.

<i>Woman in Mind</i> 32nd play by Alan Ayckbourn

Woman in Mind (December Bee) is the 32nd play by English playwright Alan Ayckbourn. It was premiered at the Stephen Joseph Theatre In The Round, Scarborough, in 1985. Despite pedestrian reviews by many critics, strong audience reaction resulted in a transfer to London's West End. The play received its London opening at the Vaudeville Theatre in 1986 where it received predominantly excellent reviews.

Relatively Speaking is a 1965 play by British playwright Alan Ayckbourn, originally titled Meet My Father, his first major success.

<i>RolePlay</i> (play) 2001 play by Alan Ayckbourn

RolePlay is a 2001 play by British playwright Alan Ayckbourn, the third in a trilogy of plays called Damsels in Distress. It is about an engaged couple, Julie-Ann Jobson and Justin Lazenby whose engagement party is interrupted by unexpected intrusions.

Alison Pargeter is an English actress who played the roles of stalker Sarah Cairns in the BBC soap opera EastEnders, Mary Slessor in an 11-part television series of Mary Slessor, the Nag's Head barmaid called Val in the BBC Only Fools and Horses prequel Rock & Chips, She later played the role of Margaret Campbell in the third series of STARZ's Outlander, and also as a Kindly Old Woman in the HBO series The Nevers.

<i>Private Fears in Public Places</i> 2004 play by Alan Ayckbourn

Private Fears in Public Places is a 2004 play by British playwright Alan Ayckbourn. The bleakest play written by Ayckbourn for many years, it intimately follows a few days in the lives of six characters, in four tightly-interwoven stories through 54 scenes.

Lia Williams is an English actress and director, on stage, in film and television. She has had television roles in The Crown, in May 33rd (2004) for which she was nominated for a BAFTA, and in The Missing (2016), Kiri (2016), His Dark Materials (2019–2022) and The Capture (2019–2021).

<i>Taking Steps</i> 1979 farce by Alan Ayckbourn

Taking Steps is a 1979 farce by British playwright Alan Ayckbourn. It is set on three floors of an old and reputedly haunted house, with the stage arranged so that the stairs are flat and all three floors are on a single level.

Jacqueline King is a British stage and television actress known for her role in Alan Ayckbourn's theatre production of GamePlan and as recurring character Sylvia Noble in Doctor Who.

<i>GamePlan</i> (play) 2001 play by Alan Ayckbourn

GamePlan is a 2001 play by British playwright Alan Ayckbourn, the first in a trilogy of plays called Damsels in Distress The darkest of the three plays, it is about a teenage girl who tries to support herself and her mother through prostitution.

<i>FlatSpin</i> 2001 play by Alan Ayckbourn

FlatSpin is a 2001 play by British playwright Alan Ayckbourn, the second in a trilogy of plays called Damsels in Distress It is about an actress called Rosie Seymour who accepts a date with a mysterious Sam Berryman, who seems to have mistaken her for a Joanna Rupelford.

<i>Drowning on Dry Land</i> (play) 2004 play by Alan Ayckbourn

Drowning on Dry Land is a 2004 play by British playwright Alan Ayckbourn, his 66th to be produced. Exploring the culture of B-list celebrities, it is a comedy about the rise and fall of Charlie Conrad, a man apparently famous for being a failure.

<i>If I Were You</i> (play) 2006 play by Alan Ayckbourn

If I Were You is a 2006 play by British playwright Alan Ayckbourn. It is about an unhappy married couple who are given the chance to understand each other by discovering, quite literally, what they would do "if I were you," in the same manner as the novel Turnabout by Thorne Smith.

<i>Sugar Daddies</i> (play) 2003 play by Alan Ayckbourn

Sugar Daddies is a 2003 play by British playwright Alan Ayckbourn. It is about a student who forms a friendship with a rich man over three times her age, who has a sinister past, and maybe a sinister present too.

<i>Haunting Julia</i> 1994 play by Alan Ayckbourn

Haunting Julia is a 1994 play by British playwright Alan Ayckbourn. It is about Julia Lukin, a nineteen-year-old brilliant musician who committed suicide twelve years earlier, who haunts the three men closest to her, through both the supernatural and in their memories. In 2008, it was presented as the first play of Things That Go Bump.

<i>Snake in the Grass</i> (play) 2002 play by Alan Ayckbourn

Snake in the Grass is a 2002 play by British playwright Alan Ayckbourn. The play is about a middle-aged older sister who returns to the family home where her younger sister still lives, shortly after their abusive father's death. It was written as a female companion piece to the 1994 ghost play Haunting Julia, and in 2008 these two plays, together with new play Life and Beth were folded into a trilogy named Things That Go Bump.

<i>Life and Beth</i> Play written by Alan Ayckbourn

Life and Beth is a 2008 play by British playwright Alan Ayckbourn. It was written as a third part of a trilogy named Things That Go Bump, uniting the cast of the first two plays: Haunting Julia (1994) and Snake in the Grass (2002). It is about a recently bereaved widow, Beth, troubled by her family's misguided support and a late husband who won't leave her alone.

Things That Go Bump is a season of plays performed in 2008 by British playwright Alan Ayckbourn.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Preface to Damsels in Distress [ permanent dead link ], Alan Ayckbourn, London: Faber & Faber, ISBN   0-571-21648-X
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Damsels in Distress History on official Ayckbourn site [ permanent dead link ]
  3. 1 2 3 4 Allen, Paul (2004) A Pocket Guide to Alan Ayckbourn's Plays, London: Faber & Faber, ISBN   0-571-21492-4
  4. ↑ Programme notes from GamePlan held on official Ayckbourn site [ permanent dead link ]
  5. 1 2 3 Production details of GamePlan on official Ayckbourn site [ permanent dead link ]
  6. 1 2 3 Production details of GamePlan on official Ayckbourn site [ permanent dead link ]
  7. 1 2 3 Production details of GamePlan on official Ayckbourn site [ permanent dead link ]
  8. 1 2 Arts Archive UK performance listings of GamePlan FlatSpin and RolePlay
  9. ↑ BBC News Online, 10 January 2002
  10. ↑ The Northern Echo, 13 January 2002
  11. 1 2 3 4 The Independent, 25 October 2002 [ dead link ]
  12. ↑ 'The Guardian review, 11 September 2001
  13. ↑ The Daily Telegraph review, 9 September 2002 [ dead link ]
  14. ↑ List of 2002 Critics' Circle awards on British Theatre Guide Archived 20 November 2008 at the Wayback Machine
  15. 1 2 BBC News Online, 24 October 2002
  16. ↑ The Daily Telegraph, 24 October 2002, retrieved from www.accessmylibrary.com
  17. ↑ The Times, 12 August 2003
  18. ↑ Arts Archive, UK performance listings of Sugar Daddies
  19. ↑ Plays at a glance (London) on official Ayckbourn website [ permanent dead link ]
  20. ↑ Arts Archive, UK performance listings of Private Fears in Public Places
  21. ↑ Interview with Ayckbourn, The Daily Telegraph, 25 November 2007 [ dead link ]
  22. ↑ BBC News Online, 25 September 2008
  23. ↑ The Stage, 8 December 2008.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.