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The Lady and the Clarinet

The Lady and the Clarinet
Your Price: $18.95 CDN
Author: Michael Cristofer
Publisher: Dramatists Play Service (cover may change)
Format: Softcover
# of Pages: 85
Pub. Date: 1985
Edition: Acting
ISBN-10: 0822206277
ISBN-13: 9780822206279
Cast Size: 1 female, 3 male, plus a non-speaking musician

About the Play:

The Lady and the Clarinet has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Male Monologues.

The Lady and the Clarinet is a full-length comedy by Michael Cristofer. While waiting for her dinner-date at home Luba reminisces to a hired clarinet player about her past romances. Paul, Jack and George all figure in these reminiscences, but what is real and what is a dream, and have you ever really been in love? The Lady and the Clarinet is an inventive and very funny retelling of the romantic misadventures of a still unfulfilled woman.

The Lady and the Clarinet is a fresh, slightly condensed story of a woman's inability to find 'something more' in her romantic relationships. The scene is the chic New York apartment of Luba, a woman successful in business but less fortunate in her private life. She is awaiting a male dinner guest and has engaged a clarinet player to provide romantic background music. Falling into a reverie, Luba begins to reminisce about the three men who have meant the most to her in her life thus far – which leads to a series of intriguing flashbacks. In the first Luba is sixteen and meets Paul, a young employee of her father's, who initiates her into the mysteries of sex, but bores her otherwise. Then comes Jack, a high-powered (and married) TV executive who is successful, exciting and funny. He seeks out Luba for a fling and refuge from his midlife crisis. Finally there is George, a rich widower who can cook and clean for her but looks elsewhere for love. As the play ends the unanswered question is whether her new dinner companion will, at last, be "the man" she has been searching for – but, as the nonspeaking clarinet player so eloquently suggests with smiles, shrugs and instrumental trills, the prospects (measured by the past) are not too promising.

The Lady and the Clarinet premiered in 1980 at the Mark Taper Forum, in Los Angeles. The play went on to a long run Off-Broadway at the Lucille Lortel Theater in 1983 and at the Long Wharf Theater Stage II in New Haven, Connecticut. It won The Scotsman newspaper's coveted Fringe First award the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and transferred to London's King's Head Theatre for the London Fringe. The play has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops and has been mounted and by colleges and community theatres.

Cast: 1 female, 3 male, plus a non-speaking musician

What people say:

"Michael Cristofer's comedy The Lady and the Clarinet explores aspects of love from a tantalizingly abstract perspective. Cristofer doesn't provide any easy answers concerning questions of the heart, he simply poses more questions. The Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright doesn't dissect and analyze human relationships, but instead demonstrates love's ability to manipulate human behavior... This is an intelligent, thought-provoking, humorous, wholly entertaining production." — The Los Angeles Times

"…a searching yet hilarious examination of the unviability of modern relationships." — The New York Magazine

"This is a meringue of a play, bright and fluffy. The dialogue is crisp and often very funny." — New York Post

"…Cristofer is an excellent writer, who demonstrates a fine flair for comedy here…." — The Hollywood Reporter

About the Playwright:

Michael Cristofer is an American actor, director and writer well known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning play The Shadow Box. He attended Catholic University in Washington, DC and American University in Lebanon. He has written screenplays for Witches of Eastwick and Bonfire of the Vanities.

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