alphabetical author index

Woman in Mind

  • Alan Ayckbourn
  • Full Length Play, Drama, Contemporary
  • 5M, 3F
  • ISBN: 9780573016622

"Ayckbourn knows that even the bleakest situations aren't allergic to laughter, and he creates a set of believable people whose weaknesses and foibles are food for mirth. We laugh at ourselves through his characters and the experience is at once painful and exhilarating."

Sunday Express

  • Full Length Play
  • Drama

  • Time Period: Contemporary
  • Set Requirements: Exterior Set
The comic poet of middle class life, always so very funny, goes deeper and darker in this triumphant play about a housewife named Susan who is married to a boring cleric named George.

After getting knocked out by stepping on the tooth end of a garden rake, Susan experiences hilarious hallucinations in which her oppressive and boring everyday life is replaced by a fantasy in which she is an ideal wife and mother with an ideal family. While her real family treats her with condescension and apathy, her fantasy family dresses in lovely white, always drinks champagne, lives in a stately home and tells her that she is wonderful.

Eventually, the fantasy family becomes nightmarish and Susan begins to realize that she is going mad.

REVIEWS:

"Ayckbourn knows that even the bleakest situations aren't allergic to laughter and he creates a set of believable people whose weaknesses and foibles are food for mirth. We laugh at ourselves through his characters and the experience is at one painful and exhilarating." 

 Sunday Express

"A savage tragi-comedy."

 The Guardian

Premiere Production: Woman in Mind was first performed in Scarborough at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in the Round on 30th May, 1985. It was subsequently presented by Michael Codron at the Vaudeville Theatre, London, on 3rd September, 1986.
  • Casting: 5M, 3F

  • SUSAN
    BILL - her doctor
    GERALD - her husband
    MURIEL - her sister-in-law
    RICK - her son
    ANDY - her husband
    TONY - her brother
    LUCY - her daughter
  • Name Price
    Woman in Mind Script Order Now

    The comic poet of middle class life, always so very funny, goes deeper and darker in this triumphant play about a housewife named Susan who is married to a boring cleric named George.

    After getting knocked out by stepping on the tooth end of a garden rake, Susan experiences hilarious hallucinations in which her oppressive and boring everyday life is replaced by a fantasy in which she is an ideal wife and mother with an ideal family. While her real family treats her with condescension and apathy, her fantasy family dresses in lovely white, always drinks champagne, lives in a stately home and tells her that she is wonderful.

    Eventually, the fantasy family becomes nightmarish and Susan begins to realize that she is going mad.

    $24.95