House & Garden by Alan Ayckbourn

Two dazzling new interconnected plays from the acclaimed author ofCommunicating Doors. Two plays -- designed to be performed simultaneously and involving the same characters -- set in the same English country house on the same cloudy August day, are Alan Ayckbourns vehicle for a sharp and hilarious scrutiny of the destructive nature of human behavior and emotions. Friends, neighbors, and hired help are gathered in preparation for a garden fecirc;te at which the guest of honor, for reasons of which no one is entirely certain, is an alcoholic, promiscuous French movie star. The surly gardener steadily ignores various intrigues being rather noisily conducted in the bushes and garden sheds, the film stars agent is mistakenly assumed to be a chauffeur and is sent to the pub for her lunch, the dog does his share of alerting passersby to covert romantic liaisons, the kitchen maid breaks everything she touches, and an amoral London writer observes the goings-on with a cool and knowing eye. As the action, and the storm clouds, build toward the afternoons deluge, politics, friship, marriage, sex, children, the interactions of the social classes, and the absurd anachronisms of the remaining landed gentry are all submitted to Ayckbourns penetrating gaze. Born in London in 1939,Alan Ayckbournis the author of over fifty plays, which have been translated into some thirty different languages. Ayckbourns plays have been presented, on stage and on television, throughout the worldand have received many British and international awards. In 1997, he became the first playwright knighted since Terence Rattigan. Ayckbourn lives in London. Two playsdesigned to be performed simultaneously and involving the same charactersset in the same English country house on the same cloudy August day, are Alan Ayckbourns vehicle for a sharp and hilarious scrutiny of the destructive nature of human behavior and emotions. Friends, neighbors, and hired help are gathered in preparation for a garden fecirc;te at which the guest of honor, for reasons of which no one is entirely certain, is an alcoholic, promiscuous French movie star. The surly gardener steadily ignores various intrigues being rather noisily conducted in the bushes and garden sheds, the film stars agent is mistakenly assumed to be a chauffeur and is sent to the pub for her lunch, the dog does his share of alerting passersby to covert romantic liaisons, the kitchen maid breaks everything she touches, and an amoral London writer observes the goings-on with a cool and knowing eye. As the action, and the storm clouds, build toward the afternoons deluge, politics, friendship, marriage, sex, children, the interactions of the social classes, and the absurd anachronisms of the remaining landed gentry are all submitted to Ayckbourns penetrating gaze. An audacious, crazy, altogether brilliant achievement.Richard Zoglin,Time HouseandGarden[together] constitute as ingeniously constructed a work as the contemporary theater offers.Bruce Weber,The New York Times What in lesser hands might be mere gimmickry becomes, in [Ayckbourns], genius. That word is usually invoked posthumously, but why begrudge it to a living artist who time and again has given us so much pleasure and pabulum . . . Do not assume, however, that this is merely a cute tour de force; it is, aside from much laugh-out-loud fun, also a serious demonstration of the idea that what happens to people in contiguous but separated places gravely affects, perhaps even radically changes, their tragicomical lives.John Simon,New York Seen together, [HouseandGarden] offer an extraordinary comic-melancholic vision of married life in which women end up as resilient victims.House, in particular, is one of Ayckbourns

Author: Alan Ayckbourn

Language: English

Edition: 1st

Binding: Paperback

Pages: 192

Publisher: Faber & Faber

Publication Date: 2001-06-01