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July 06, 2002

Abigail's Party (first draught)

Classic slice of 70's life

Beverley and her husband Lawrence give a small cocktail party in a suburban house. They invite a couple who have recently moved into the street, and local divorcee Sue, Abigail's mother, to get her out of her house while her teenage daughter is giving a completely different kind of party a few doors away.

This is a play mostly about class; Lawrence is an estate agent, the new neighbours are a computer operator, Tony, and a nurse, Angela. Sue's husband was an architect; so we have lower-middle, working and upper-middle class represented. Lawrence looks down on Tony's job, Tony resents Lawrence, and Sue manages to remain aloof from the class jibes.

The play is also about failed marriages. As the alcohol levels rise, Beverley and Tony operator dance together, obviously taunting their partners, and she also makes frequent jibes at her husbands small stature and his upper class pretensions about art and music. Sue is a very disappointed middle aged woman who thinks her life is over now that her husband has left her for a younger woman.

Lawrence eventually collapses with a stress induced heart attack and dies, ending the play on a very low note.

Whilst the play is very serious on the one hand, there is a lot of comedy in the superb performances by the cast. We laugh at them though, never with them, as they show us their pettiness and prejudices, and their unintentional ignorance.

Strangely, our eponymous heroine never appears.

AE0

Posted by se71 at July 6, 2002 11:24 AM

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