How The Other Half Loves

HOW THE OTHER HALF LOVES

by Alan Ayckbourne

Director: Shirley Sydenham

The season runs from 8th July 2004 to 24th July 2004 (15 performances in all)

For further details please contact Shirley Sydenham on 9354 5380 or on surely@bigpond.net.au

A hilarious look at marriage, infidelity and how not to host a dinner party.

Filled with zany insights into marital foibles, this unsentimental play offers wacky humour and ingenious stagecraft that keeps the audience rapt. Two couples are each having another couple - the same couple - to dinner. Whilst these events take place on different days and locations, the ingenuity of the set (which is almost a seventh character) shows both actions happening simultaneously with hilarious effect. A roller-coaster evening for cast and audience alike with mayhem the predictable result.


All parts (3M, 3F) are about equal in size, and each is onstage most of the time.


Cast:

Frank Foster

Forties/fifties. Department manager. Vague, forgetful, inarticulate, a bit pompous. Tends to get the wrong end of the stick. Rather inept around the house. Unexpectedly sentimental, but unable to express himself clearly. He cares about Fiona, but their life together seems to have little intimacy any more. He cares about the team he leads at work, and this is really the basis of the playÂ’s action.

Fiona Foster

Elegant woman in her forties. SheÂ’s very much a corporate wife, used to entertaining FrankÂ’s business associates and colleagues, often at short notice. SheÂ’s rather impatient, even contemptuous at times, of Frank. However, because of him she has a comfortable life and nice home, and, though bored, she definitely knows on which side her bread is buttered.

Teresa (Terry) Phillips

Untidy, rather intense, tired looking woman in her early thirties. She has a young child and is not coping well. She is rather depressed. SheÂ’s run down and has let house and child duties get on top of her. She is frustrated by this but unable to pull herself out of it. Her feistiness is not too far below the surface however.

Bob Phillips

Early thirties. DoesnÂ’t help around the house, expects his wife to do everything on the domestic front. He is not understanding of his wifeÂ’s depression, but is annoyed and frustrated by it. He feels helpless in the situation and doesnÂ’t know how to help her, so he doesnÂ’t really try. He tends to put his own needs first.

William Featherstone

Mid to late twenties. Rather boring. Ambitious and ingratiating to his boss, Frank, and to Fiona. He bullies his wife to be sociable and an asset to his ambitions. He is of the opinion that she was nothing till she married him. He is never wrong, and therefore rather smug.

Mary Featherstone

Mid to late twenties. Very nervous young woman. Easily intimidated, hates socialising and feels very threatened and awkward in social situations. She needs to be needed and feels comfortable, more confident even, in a mothering situation.