Island Theatre at the Library
April 19, 20 – 7:30 pm
The Lady's Not For Burning
By Christopher Fry
Directed by Sara Anne Scribner
CAST:
Ken Enright
Steve Stolee
Shaun Pearson
Bronsyn Springer
Bob Cederwall
Tracy Dickerson
Tell Schreiber
Rozzella Kolbegger
Lee Salisbury
Jim Anderson
Set in April 1400, 'either more or less exactly," this comedy in verse follow Thomas Mendip, a war-weary veteran, who wanting to die, makes up and then confesses to the murder of Old Skipps, the rag and bone man. Mendip encounters not only a reluctantly bureaucratic Mayor ("This will all be gone into at the proper time!") but also Jennet Jourdemayne, a beautiful, lively woman falsely accused of being a witch, and condemned to burn. Among the other townfolk, two brothers fight viciously over marrying young nun, Alizon Eliot. As the play progresses, two passionate love stories lead to a surprisingly satisfying ending.
Critics have loved the play since its London debut in 1948 with Richard Burton, Claire Bloom and John Gielgud. "Those who fell in love with the lyric beauty of Fry's verse drama when in first made a stunning debut, will be glad to know that, despite an occasional precious moment, it stands the test of time." (Laura Hitchcock).
Fry himself says: "Life itself is the real and most miraculous miracle of all. If one had never before seen a human hand and were suddenly presented for the first time with this strange and wonderful thing, what a wonderful thing, what a miracle, what a magnificently shocking and inexplicable and mysterious thing it would be. In my plays I want to look at life - at the commonplaces of existence - as if we had just turned a corner and run into it for the first time."
Expect a treat. No need to come prepared to endure verse. The action is lively, the characters funny, the language startling and evocative. "Act III contains some of the most beautiful love verse drama in the English language." (Curtainup.com). So join us and in the words of the play "You will spend the evening joyously, sociably, taking part in the pleasures of your fellow men."
CHRISTOPHER FRY
Christopher Fry was regarded in the decade after the Second World War as one of the brightest talents of the English stage and was hailed as the man who would bring about a new Elizabethan age of verse drama in the English theatre. He died in 2005.
His best known plays, The Lady's Not for Burning (1948) and Venus Observed (1949), conveyed an optimism about humanity and a sense of divine providence that were a great comfort in a world coming to terms with the newly revealed horrors of the Holocaust and the Atom bomb.
A product of the Religious Drama Movement which launched TS Eliot as a dramatist, Fry wrote about a world untarnished by original sin. His endings were always happy; the Lady, audiences knew, never would burn.Great actors vied for his favour: Gielgud, Olivier, Scofield and Edith Evans in England, and in America Katherine Cornell and Tyrone Power. Critics praised the light whimsical comedy of his verse and compared its lush romantic rhetoric and lyric soliloquies to Shakespeare. "He can make words dance," enthused Harold Hobson. The plays were huge commercial hits; at one point Fry had four plays running in the West End at once