Word: ayckbourn
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...fact, that is not likely to happen very often. Most people instinctively watch Ayckbourn. Something is going on behind that face of vanilla pudding, but they are not quite sure what. If they had seen any of his 22 plays, however, they would know: Ayckbourn is watching them, his eyes alert for what he calls those "quick social embarrassments" that comprise the human comedy...
...Ayckbourn never strays from the subjects he knows so well: English suburbia and the slightly sad, but always funny problems of the married, the formerly married and the soon-to-be unmarried. "It is a rich source of comedy," he says. "Everything that is most horrifying and wonderful happens in marriage." He should know. His mother, a novelist, divorced his father, first violinist with the London Symphony Orchestra, when Alan, the only child, was five. She married a bank manager, who did not hide his dislike of Alan. They were later divorced...
...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...