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The Lady and the Clarinet
The Lady and the Clarinet
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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
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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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