Wild Spring (1992)
(1w 2m)
 
SYNOPSIS

GERTIE, a forty-four year old actress at the peak of her career, befriends SAM, aged nineteen. He believes he can only ever be a black car park attendant, she believes she can be more useful than a mere actress. Each tries to argue the other out of the fond images they have of themselves. Fifteen years later, GERTIE'S career is in crisis. She's in love - unrequited - with KENNEDY, the younger black company manager who believes he's an 'artist' but who in fact is a born entrepreneur. The play explores acting as a metaphor for the false images of ourselves with which we fall in love.
EXCERPT
"'Just acting'. Are you aware, Mr Phillips, that society normally uses the name of our profession as a term of abuse? 'Oh ignore her, she's just acting!' Are you aware, Mr Phillips, that every night I go out there in front of an audience and pretend to be who I am not? Are you aware, Mr Phillips, that if I did that in public life I'd be shunned, vilified, called a humbug, a fraud, a sham, a fake, a liar? But up there, made-up, lights bright, someone else's words of wit and brilliance, I can dissemble to my heart's content, it's acceptable, no one gives a toss. What is despised in a person off stage I am deceiving an audience to praise on stage. And the more convincingly I deceive the more they praise."
 

This play was world premiered in Tokyo, and has been running for three years in Budapest where the actress won a prestigious prize for her performance.

The two men need not be black but can be any kind of ethnic outsider.
 
Back to Synopses index