Thursday, May 14, 2015

3 June - Habeas Corpus by Alan Bennett

Well, The Rivers of China certainly gave us something to think about.  I think we all found this a life-changing play and will be certainly taking home with us the following passages (I copy them here so that you can print them off and put them on your fridge):

"Woman is from ground.  Self development not possible for her unless she is with man"

"Only way for woman is to evolve - go to what you call 'heaven' - is with man"

"There are women try to become man, but this wrong for her nature. Man has aspiration to find heaven because has possibility for immortality. But such aspiration poison for woman unless has man to help her"

We might also have taken away the message from this play that there should be equality of the sexes and that neither should be the ruling gender.


Habeas Corpus by Alan Bennett

Alan Bennett is a popular playwright with the group, and after today's more challenging play we are throwing ourselves back into his arms!

Habeas Corpus is the legal term for: You shall have the body.  And that pretty well sums up this 1973 farce!  I think we can look forward to a bit of a romp, double entendres and rumpy pumpy! I read that Bennett wanted to write using the farce tradition, but with a twist.  His twist is that there are few stage instructions ... so you'll need to keep on the ball!

The play concerns the aging Dr. Arthur Wicksteed and his pursuit of a nubile patient, Felicity Rumpers. Wicksteed's wife, Muriel, is, in turn, lusting after the charming head of the British Medical Association, Sir Percy Shorter, who, as well as being Wicksteed's old rival, turns out to be Felicity's father - the result of an under-the-table liaison during an air-raid with Lady Rumpers, her mother.  Felicity herself is pregnant and finds a way to cover it up in the hypochondriac son of Dr. Wicksteed, Denis.  Meanwhile, Wicksteed's spinster sister Connie, ashamed of her flat-chestedness, has schemes of her own.

Sir Alec Guinness and Madeline Smith