Sunday 10 April 2011

12 Easy Absurdist Plays: Summaries

Nuts
By Tom Topor

Psychological Drama.  Set in a courtroom inside a psychiatric hospital, a girl is accused of killing a prostitute in self defense.  Her parents, trying to defend her, try to have her declared insane, while their daughter fights to prove her sanity.
9 Characters.

Olive

Dark fairy tale.  A girl meets her father, who abandoned her at birth, and who takes her to a foreign country.  Fed up with his daughter’s backtalk, the father cuts off her hands.  A wood sprite arrives to save her life and gives her a new pair of hands.  She is immersed in a dark fairytale world.  Difficult to find play.
11 characters.

Team Spirit
By Judy Upton

A lone yachtswoman must win a race between Plymouth and Halifax, Nova Scotia to continue to afford to pursue her dreams, but every moment of her journey is relayed by video and internet to the media and the public. Can she weather the publicity storm as well as the worst the weather can throw at her? 
13 parts.

The Lesson
By Eugène Ionesco

A professor is expecting a new pupil.  The pupil proves to be more and more ignorant, and is eventually murdered by the professor. 
3 Characters.

The Bald Soprano
By Eugène Ionesco

A couple from London invite their friends over for a visit.  The hosts’ maid and the local fire chief, who are lovers, show up later.  The two families talk meaninglessly, telling stories and poems.  The group is unsettled when the fire chief mentions, in leaving, a “bald soprano”.   After this, the play unsettles into a series of meaningless and illogical non sequiturs. 
6 characters.

The Birthday Party
By Harold Pinter

A piano player living in a boarding house is visited by two strangers who accuse him of leaving and betraying their organization.  They and the hosts of the boarding house plan him a surprise party for his birthday, which the piano player denies having.  The next day, the strangers carry him away to a car and drive away. 
6 characters.

A Night Out
By Harold Pinter
A loner who lives with his mother is invited to an office party.  His mother tells him to behave himself, and at the party he tries to engage in small talk but is falsely accused of making a move on a girl.  He flees the party, and picks up a girl in a coffee chop.  When they head back to her room, the girl acts pretentious and the annoyed man leaves her and returns to his mother. 
15 characters.

A Slight Ache
By Harold Pinter

A man and a woman sit at a breakfast table, where the men mentions a slight ache in his eyes.  Outside, a matchseller who has been standing in front of the yard for weeks makes the man and woman nervous.  As they discuss him, the man’s ache becomes aggravated.  The man and woman invite in the matchseller to confront him, and he turns out to be an old man who apparently cannot see or speak.  His silence causes the man and woman to spill out their fears and frustrations. 
3 Characters.

The Dumb Waiter
By Harold Pinter

Two hired killers, hiding out in the basement of an abandoned restaurant, spend their time bickering.  They discuss the news and their surroundings.  The food delivery elevator behind them mysteriously begins to deliver food. 
2 Characters.

Recklessness
By Eugene O'Neill

A wealthy lady and her married wealthy husband have a maid.  The wealthy lady falls in love with a low-class man, who was a past lover of the maid’s.  The maid, jealous of their affair, reveals it to the wealthy husband.  The wealthy husband confronts his wife and the low-class man, and after the two confess their affair, the wealthy husband has the low-class man killed.  His wife chooses to take her own life as well. 
(Seemingly) 4 characters.

The Lottery 
Adapted by Brainerd Duffield, Original short story by Shirley Jackson

In a contemporary small town, locals are nervous on the day of the annual “lottery” ritual., practiced to ensure a good harvest.  The head of each family randomly draws a piece of paper.  The one who draws the marked sheet enters the second round of lottery with the rest of his family.  Each family member pulls a piece, and the wife pulls the marked paper.  Everyone present stones the wife to death in sacrifice for the harvest, while the wife protests the fairness of the lottery. 
10+ Characters.

The Actor’s Nightmare
By Christopher Durang

A man is inexplicably backstage at a play performance.  The stage manager is under the impression that the man is an understudy for an actor who broke his legs.  The man, very confused, cannot remember coming to any rehearsals or ever being an actor.  He thinks he is an accountant.  Nobody else in the play can seem to agree on what play is being performed, but the confused man is forced on stage anyways.  He improvises his character for most of the time, but finally realizes what play he is in and who his character is.  He also realizes that his character is to be executed.  When the set for his execution seems all too real, he convinces himself he must be in a dream and accepts the execution.  At the play’s curtain call, to the casts confusion, he appears to actually be dead. 
7 characters.

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