About the Play:

Plenty was one of Royal National Theatre of Britain's top 100 plays of the 20th century.

Plenty has become a favourite of acting teachers for Female/Male Scenes.

Plenty is a full-length drama by David Hare. An English woman who served as a spy for the French Resistance during World War II sees her youthful ideals about the war's effect on Britain destroyed in the decades after, as her marriage and sanity also deteriorate.

Plenty is the story of Susan Traherne, a fiercely intelligent British secret agent flown into France during the Second World War. Susan's experiences among her war-time colleagues and over the two decades that follow are distilled in powerful scenes in this endlessly layered work about a woman of remarkable bravery, who cannot find in peacetime the values and relationships she cherished in war. Now disaffected and cynical, she marries a conventional career diplomat and proceeds to wreck both their lives. Plenty is a powerful comment on post-war England, where ideals collapse and values collide.

Plenty premiered in 1978 at the Lyttelton Theatre in the West End of London and was nominated for the Olivier Award as Play of the Year. It premiered Off-Broadway in 1982 at the Public Theater and won the 1983 Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best American Play. It then transferred to Broadway in 1983 at the Plymouth Theatre and received a Tony nomination for Best Play. The play has been performed in regional repertory and college theatre productions.

Cast: 2 female, 3 male

What people say:

"An explosive theatrical vision of a world that was won and lost during and after World War II. A relentlessly gripping play [that] punctures our conscience." — The New York Times

"Plenty has a near epic resonance and Susan Traherne must be the most extensive woman's role in the contemporary English language theatre ... crackles with a passionate intelligence...." — Newsweek

About the Playwright:

Sir David Hare is one of Britain's most internationally performed playwrights. He was born in Sussex in 1947. A writer of social themes, David Hare has been Associate Director of the National Theatre in London since 1984. He was knighted in 1998 and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.