Word: ayckbourn
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...discouraged by the distance. The Quad is a long way off, especially on cold December nights, but the Currier House Drama Society's production of Alan Ayckbourn's trilogy of comedies makes the trip worth the time and effort...
...Ayckbourn married a young actress, Christine Roland, when he was 19 and fathered two sons, now 19 and 17. He and Christine separated several years ago, and Alan, who will be 40 next week, now lives with Heather Stoney, who is also an actress. His wife, Christine, has her own lover, and all four get along splendidly. Heather and Christine even take turns cutting Ayckbourn's hair; he is as frightened of barbers as he is of dentists. "People try to introduce me to my wife and get embarrassed when they find out we're married," he says...
Terrified of cities, Ayckbourn lives in Scarborough, a resort on the North Sea, 230 miles north of London, where he and Heather have a converted vicarage. He is director of a theater-in-the-round with some 300 seats. He puts on new works and old, but every year, shortly after Christmas, he is certain of one production, a new play by Alan Ayckbourn. Some time in November he sharpens his pencils, gets out his pad of paper from Woolworth's and shuts himself up. Heather can tell when the time is approaching because "he gets slightly weirder...
Though it is new to Broadway, Bedroom Farce is only his 18th play; his 21st, Joking Apart, just opened in London; and his 22nd, Sisterly Feelings, is on tour in England. Ayckbourn enjoys all kinds of games and puzzles-he has a vast game room in Scarborough-and his plays are like Chinese boxes. The Norman Conquests looks at the same people from three different angles; Bedroom Farce hops into three bedrooms; Sisterly Feelings has two third acts. From night to night no one, Ayckbourn included, knows which one will be played. At the end of the second...
...Ayckbourn's aim is to write about serious matters in a funny way. One-liners terrify him even more than dentists and barbers. "There are not more than three funny lines in all of Bedroom Farce," he says proudly. At this point Heather confides his real ambition. "What Alan would like to do," she says, "is to write a funny King Lear." But with at least two third acts...