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Close Ties
Close Ties
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Author: Elizabeth Diggs Publisher: Dramatists Play Service (cover may change) Format: Softcover # of Pages: 73 Pub. Date: 1982 Edition: Acting ISBN-10: 0822202204 ISBN-13: 9780822202202 Cast Size: 5 female, 3 male
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About
the Play:
Close Ties is a full-length drama by Elizabeth Diggs.
This is a warm-hearted, funny and eloquently written play which
blends humour and compassion as it reveals what happens to the very
fabric of a family as they have to come to grips with the problem of
how best to provide for the family's aging, and perhaps senile,
matriarch. Close Ties celebrates the humour, the truth, and
the mystery and very nature of family.
Particularly
suitable for schools and play contests.
Close Ties tells the story of three generations of the Frye
family gathering at their vacation home in the Berkshire Mountains of
New England. The centre for all of them has always been the wilful
matriarch, Josephine Whitaker, who, still bustles about energetically
tending her garden and issuing orders to the others, even though she
has long since given the house to her middle-aged daughter, Bess
Frye, and her husband, Watson, who is now a senior partner in the law
firm founded by his late father-in-law. Also present are the Frye
children, three adult daughters and a teenaged son, and Ira
Bienstock, the new boyfriend of one of the Frye daughters, who
arrives uninvited but quickly ingratiates himself with Josephine and
the others. While concerned with family ties, and the tensions,
misunderstandings and good-natured bickering which arise from such
closeness, the ultimate focus of the play is on the once indomitable
Josephine, who is edging into senility and, in the family's view,
must no longer be allowed to live alone. It is the resolution of this
problem, which so many must face in today's world, that provides the
very believable – and deeply moving – conclusion of this most
human and genuinely affecting play.
Close Ties premiered in 1981 at Long Wharf Theatre's Stage
Two in by New Haven, Connecticut and was a finalist for the
prestigious Susan Smith Blackburn
Prize honouring the best English-language women writers worldwide. It
has won rave reviews in hundreds of productions, including its first
New York production in 2008 at Off-Broadway's
Ensemble Studio Theatre (EST), and
has been mounted by high schools, colleges, and community theatres.
Cast: 5 female, 3 male
What people say:
"…a witty and winning
play…." — New Haven Register
"Not only is the dialogue
believable, it is immensely energetic. The substance of the play is
serious, yet marvelously funny touches give the characters
individuality and depth." — The Bulletin
"…It's as fine a play as one
is likely to encounter for quite some time." — Darien
News
"The characters in Elizabeth
Diggs' latest domestic drama, Close Ties,
present a convincing group portrait of a family in crisis. The
problem that consumes them – namely, what to do about dotty Grandma
– is genuinely wrenching... And thanks to Diggs' skill at
naturalistic kitchen-talk, the members of this big clan sound very
convincing as they go through the old rituals of acting out their
longstanding family dynamics." — Variety
"A large and beautiful
ensemble play... theatre this good is always a surprise." —
Time Out NY
About the Playwright:
Elizabeth Diggs is an American playwright. A longtime
member of Ensemble Studio Theatre and EST's Playwrights Unit, her
plays have been produced in New York at EST and the Vineyard, and at
dozens of theatres across the United States and around the world. She
was Professor of Dramatic Writing in the Goldberg Department of
Dramatic Writing, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University.
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