Bombshells E-Book

Joanna Murray-Smith

• Herausgeber: Nick Hern Books
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

Six funny and perceptive monologues about the stresses of modern female life. Meryl Davenport – A mother who tells the story of her non-stop day in a rapid-fire internal monologue. Tiggy Entwhistle – A cactus lover bravely attempting to rise above her relationship crisis. Mary O'Donnell – A feisty teenage schoolgirl competing in a talent quest. Theresa McTerry – An increasingly disillusioned bride on her wedding day. Winsome Webster – A widow with an appetite for the unexpected. Zoe Struthers – An American cabaret singer who's had her fair share of personal problems. Joanna Murray-Smith's play Bombshells was first performed by Caroline O'Connor at the Fairfax Theatre, Victorian Arts Centre, Melbourne, Australia, in December 2001. It was revived at the same venue in 2004, transferring to the York Theatre in Sydney in April 2004. A reduced version consisting of four monologues was performed by Caroline O'Connor as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe at the Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh, in 2004. This production – now consisting of all six monologues – transferred to the Arts Theatre in the West End in September 2004.

Leseprobe

Joanna Murray-Smith

BOMBSHELLS

NICK HERN BOOKS

London

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Title Page

Author’s Note

Original Production

Characters

Bombshells

About the Author

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

Author’s Note

Bombshells was originally conceived by Simon Phillips, the wonderfully cheerful and insightful artistic director of the Melbourne Theatre Company. Simon had long admired Caroline O’Connor and, at his suggestion, I wrote six characters to give full expression to Caroline’s astonishing versatility as a performer.

‘Women on the edge’ was the uniting theme, and I found it disturbingly easy to apply my imagination to the madness which precipitates, inhabits or follows the point at which a woman’s private and public selves intersect. It seemed to me that in the post-feminist era, women have forsaken one kind of madness with other kinds. Where once women went mad suppressing their ambitions or dreams, they now drive themselves mad trying to fulfil them all simultaneously, dissecting themselves under the microscope of self-analysis, disappearing inside the impossible pressures of the will to be good, to be great and to be true to every individual instinct. Many of us are trying to lead multiple lives: child, mother, wife, lover, star, giving small doses of oxygen to each and imploding under the weight of so many competing roles. The women I have written in Bombshells struggle sometimes hilariously, sometimes tragically, to bridge the chasm between the wilderness of their inner worlds and the demands of their outer worlds. And humour, in the end, is our saviour.

While Bombshells was inspired by Caroline, these characters belong to the wider world of female performance. I hope they will be performed from Vaduz to Vladivostok, by actresses of all ages, with a universal delight in the passionate, miserable, hilarious wildness of women.

My thanks go to director and friend Simon Phillips for telling me, for God’s sake, to be funny, and for introducing me to the wonderful Ms O’Connor. Caroline and Simon first brought these words and women to life with great intelligence, endurance and panache, along with the brilliant creative endeavours of Elena Kats-Chernin, Shaun Gurton and David Murray. My thanks go to all of them and to the Melbourne Theatre Company for lighting the original fuse.

Joanna Murray-Smith