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Black Comedy

  • Peter Shaffer
  • Short Play, Comedy, Contemporary
  • 5M, 3F
  • ISBN: 9780573023033

Lovesick and desperate, sculptor Brindsley Miller has embellished his apartment with furniture and objects d'arte "borrowed" from the absent antique collector next door to impress his fiancee's pompous father and a wealthy art dealer.

More information

Description

  • Short Play
  • Comedy

  • Time Period: Contemporary
  • Set Requirements: Interior Set

  • Performance Group:
  • Community Theatre, College Theatre / Student, Professional Theatre
In one hilarious act, the action supposedly in the dark is illuminated; when the lights are to be on, the stage is the dark.

Lovesick and desperate, sculptor Brindsley Miller has embellished his apartment with furniture and objects d'arte "borrowed" from the absent antique collector next door hoping to impress his fiancee's pompous father and a wealthy art dealer, Schuppanzigh. The fussy neighbour, Harold Gorringe returns just as a blown fuse plunges the apartment into darkness and Brindsley is revealed teetering on the verge of very ripe farce.

Unexpected guests, aging spinsters, errant phone cords and other snares impede his frantic attempts to return the purloined items before light is restored.
REVIEWS:

"[One of] the funniest and most brilliant short plays in the language."

 London Sunday Times

"Pure hilarity."

 International Herald Tribune

"Laughter mounts steadily."

 The New York Times

Premiere Production: Black Comedy premiered at the National Theatre at Chichester in July 1965 under the direction of John Dexter.

Characters

  • Casting: 5M, 3F

  • BRINDSLEY MILLER - a young sculptor, mid-twenties, intelligent and attractive, but nervous and uncertain of himself.

  • CAROL MELKETT - Brindsley's fiancee. A young debutante; very pretty, very spoiled, very silly. Her sound that is an unmistakable, terrifying debutante quack.

  • MISS FURNIVAL - a middle-aged lady. Prissy and refined. Clad in the blouse and sack shirt of her gentility, her hair in a bun, she reveals only the repressed gestures of the middle-class spinster -- until alcohol undoes her.

  • COLONEL MELKETT - Carol's commanding father. Brisk, barky, yet given to sudden vocal calms which suggest a deep alarming instability. It is not only the constant darkness which gives him his look of wide-eyed submission.

  • HAROLD GORRINGE - the bachelor owner of an antique-china shop, and Brindsley's neighbour, Harold comes from the North of England. His friendship is highly conditional and possessive: sooner or later, payment for it will be asked. A specialist in emotional blackmail, he can become hysterical when slighted, or (as inevitably happens) rejected. He is older than Brindsley by several years.

  • SCHUPPANZIGH - a German refugee, chubby, cultivated, and effervescent. He is an entirely happy man, delighted to be in England, even if it means being employed full time by the London Electricity Board.

  • CLEA - Brindsley's ex-mistress. Mid-twenties; dazzling, emotional, bright, and mischievous. The challenge to her is to create a dramatic situation out of the darkness is ultimately irresistible.

  • GEORG SAMBERGER - an elderly millionaire art collector, easily identifiable as suck. Like Schuppanzigh, he is German.

    • Available Material

    Name Price
    Black Comedy Script This is optional. Order Now

    In one hilarious act, the action supposedly in the dark is illuminated; when the lights are to be on, the stage is the dark.

    Lovesick and desperate, sculptor Brindsley Miller has embellished his apartment with furniture and objects d'arte "borrowed" from the absent antique collector next door hoping to impress his fiancee's pompous father and a wealthy art dealer, Schuppanzigh. The fussy neighbour, Harold Gorringe returns just as a blown fuse plunges the apartment into darkness and Brindsley is revealed teetering on the verge of very ripe farce.

    Unexpected guests, aging spinsters, errant phone cords and other snares impede his frantic attempts to return the purloined items before light is restored.

    		$24.95

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