Reviews for Three Plays: Absurd Person Singular, Absent Friends, Bedroom Farce

The average rating for Three Plays: Absurd Person Singular, Absent Friends, Bedroom Farce based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-07-28 00:00:00 Chris Coolbaugh Ayckbourn is very much in the English tradition of witty playwrights writing about menial domestic issues. He is very funny, and very critical of the sort of bland normalcy of life for most people. Not that I think he wants people to have more exciting lives, but he wants to acknowledge that lives generally revolve around small conflicts, rather than the large sweeping epic concerns (life, death, murder, madness, etc.) of say Shakespeare.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-12-23 00:00:00 Lyndsay Wood Three Plays is a terrific read. Alan Ayckbourn loves language, so it pays off for logophiles who won't necessarily see the pieces in stage production. Gratifying for both readers and small theatre companies is the use of minimal set changes or fixed sets for all the pieces. My own taste for melodrama and pathos made 'Absent Friends' a personal favorite; 'Bedroom Farce' is definitely / appropriately a farce (though definitely has enough heft and thought to elevate it from the Benny Hill show class). All of the pieces are English from early 1970s, but I did not find them dated, nor uniquely suited to UK sensibilities -- taut, searing satire of social climbing, 'keeping up appearances,' awkwardness in social norms and behavior. Curb Your Enthusiasm / Larry David aficionados will particularly enjoy these.