The Norman conquests a trilogy
The trilogy follows six characters through an increasingly disastrous family weekend. The biggest troublemaker is Norman, England's most unlikely and unlucky Romeo. As he attempts to add one more notch to the bedpost of his romantic conquests, battle-lines are drawn, and comic mayhem ensues.
| Main Author: | Ayckbourn, Alan, 1939- |
|---|---|
| Corporate Authors: | L.A. Theatre Works. |
| Other Authors: | Erdman, Dennis., Ayres, Rosalind., Danziger, Ken., Jarvis, Martin., Leeves, Jane., Neame, Christopher, 1947-, Seymour, Carolyn. |
| Format: | Audiobooks Audiobook (CD) |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
[Venice, Calif.] :
L.A. Theatre Works,
p2009.
|
| Series: |
Audio theatre series.
Play's the thing (Radio program) |
| Subjects: |
| Summary: |
The trilogy follows six characters through an increasingly disastrous family weekend. The biggest troublemaker is Norman, England's most unlikely and unlucky Romeo. As he attempts to add one more notch to the bedpost of his romantic conquests, battle-lines are drawn, and comic mayhem ensues. |
|---|---|
| Item Description: |
Compact disc. Part of LA Theatre Works' The play's the thing. |
| Physical Description: |
6 sound discs (255 min.) : digital ; 4 3/4 in. |
| Production Credits: |
Directed by Dennis Erdman ; executive producer, Susan Albert Loewenberg. |
| ISBN: |
9781580815666 1580815669 9781580815659 1580815650 |
| Author Notes: |
However, where Simon's plays tend to evolve into a condition of broad pathos or comedy, luxuriating in bittersweet melodrama, Ayckbourn's offerings revel in ever increasing intricacy, sharply incisive verbal dueling, and a dark social resonance that sounds much greater depths than in Simon's drama. Ayckbourn's scripts embody boggling challenges for directors and actors as well as audiences. Intimate Exchanges (1985), for example, a sequence of plays for ten characters played by only two actors, involves numerous moments when an actor chooses to send the script off on one of two alternative directions. The Norman Conquests (1975) typifies Ayckbourn's determination to squeeze as much as possible out of a dramatic construct. The trilogy's first play, Table Manners, offers a typical Ayckbourn scenario with family traumas played against each other in the constrained setting of a dining room. In the second and third plays, Living Together and Round and Round the Garden, the audience is exposed to simultaneous layers of action that occur in two other venues, the living room and garden, when characters are not onstage in the dining room. Each play makes sense on its own, but the trilogy taken as a whole embodies a vision of this family that is larger than the sum of the individual parts. Aychbourn has also been known for rather experimental staging. The Way Upstream (1982), for example, is set on and around a boat and requires flooding the stage. Ayckbourn's later plays reflect a bleak vision of society. In Woman in Mind (1985) and Henceforward (1987), Aychbourn's characters have become increasingly complex, and he reveals himself as an intense social commentator. Other recent plays include It Could Be Any One of Us (1983), Man of the Moment (1990), and Body Language (1991). Since the 1970s, Ayckbourn has written at least one play a season; the premieres are always at a small local theater that he runs in the resort town of Scarborough. 020 (Bowker Author Biography) |