Working Title is the play you have when you don’t have a play.



It is one of only a handful of plays entirely devoid of any recognizable plot. And that’s not easy to do. The characters come and go. They interrupt each other. They behave irrationally. They are funny. They are violent. Occasionally they burst into song.



So what’s going on?



Working Title is an excursion into various types, kinds and fashions of theatre. In itself it is a sort of vaudeville experience. It introduces us to



Ionesco

Brecht

Ibsen.



There are scenes here illustrating



Theatre of the Absurd

Brechtian Theatre

Musical Theatre and the

Theatre of Realism.

And all in the one play! Now there’s value for money!



Furthermore, members of the audience are right royally entertained.



As they should be.

Bind: paperback

The Black-bearded Bai is the first of six plays based on Asian folk lore and written specifically for use by junior and middle secondary students.

The plays are:


The Secret Housewife

The Secret Housewife illustrates a common theme in Oriental folklore. The story may be about a tien, or immortal, but it is really about loneliness, growing old and the difficulty of adapting to a changing world. This sad tale works well as a quiet, tragic mystery.

The Black-bearded Bai

A favourite theme in Chinese folklore is the triumph of intelligence over brute force. This idea is often linked with the victory of a poor person over a wealthy one. The story of Aina-kizz and the Black-bearded Bai fulfils both of the above, and is an amusing and satisfying tale. It seems natural to present it as a Brechtian comedy.

Ido and the Devil

This is a traditional story of good versus evil. Rather than turn Ido into an angel it seemed more fun to portray him as a large, innocent, artless adolescent schoolboy. And rather than portray the Devil as a traditional monster, it seemed more entertaining to depict him as a comic character, lacking in confidence but with a cheeky irrepressible nature. This script has turned into a modern-day absurdist morality play.

Ken Arok

Ken Arok is a fascinating, complex character. He is both a treacherous man and also a brave warrior. To some he is a hero, to others a villain. There is some cheerful comic banditry in Act 1, but the piece ends as a riveting physical drama, complete with stage fights and murder.

The Kimono of O Same San

This story is set in old Tokyo during a famous tragedy that took place in 1657. It is a gentle tale about a girl named O Same. It is also a very violent story. These two seemingly opposing qualities of gentleness and violence have always lain together at the heart of Japan’s history. This play, then, is a tragic love story.

Harisarman

There are many folktales in other cultures about being in the right place at the right time. This is a satisfying story imbued with a quiet Indian humour. It seemed appropriate to present it as a short Bollywood musical.

Apart from being enjoyable and relevant plays, they offer an insight into the culture of the country the play comes from.

Bind: paperback

Publication Date: 28-08-2013

One of the hardest decisions for a school Drama group to make is simply this: Which play?



The choice must be entertaining. The text must be clear and relevant. The set must be practical. The play must have parts for a specific number of actors, male and female. The show must not go on endlessly all night. And so on.



And, occasionally, it would be nice to get away from the school musical and tackle a classic.



The Unauthorised Classics Series solves some of these problems.



Doctor Mal Gray Louis is a restructuring of Moliere’s Le Medecin Malgre Lui in the style of the Italian Commedia dell’Arte.



There were no scripts in the Commedia. It was improvised theatre. It consisted of a number of stock characters, and each actor would play the one character throughout his or her career. All Commedia performers would carry comic monologues, double act routines, punch lines and bits of comic business in their heads and improvise their use when on stage. Running gags and topical allusions were a staple diet of the Commedia. The stories acted out were all variations on a theme: a rich miser wants to marry his beautiful daughter to a wealthy nobleman. The nobleman is ugly and conceited, and the girl is in love with someone else. Servants are employed to carry messages between all the parties involved. They lose the messages, fall in love with the young lovers themselves and generally cause chaos!



The Commedia was a comic, boisterous and irreverent form of theatre. So is Doctor Mal Gray Louis.

Bind: paperback

Publication Date: 18-07-2014