Plays-within-Plays in Three Modern Plays:

Michael Frayn's Noises Off, Tom Stoppard's

The Real Thing and Alan Ayckbourn's
A Choras of Disapproval

Pilar Zozaya
Universidad de Barcelona

One of the techniques that authors have frequently favoured in the history of
d r a m a is the use of a play-within-a-play. Kyd's The Spanish T r a g e d y ,
Shakespeare's Hamlet, Buckingham's The Rehearsal, Sheridan's The Critic,
Pinero's T r e l a w n y of the " Wells', and more recently Tom Stoppard's
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, The Real Inspector Hound and
The Real Thing, Iloward Brenton's The Churchill Play, Michael P'rayn's
Noises Off, Ronald Harwood's The Dresser, David Hare's A Map of the World,
and Alan Ayckbourn's A Chorus of Disapproval -just to mention the most
famous ones- have relied for part of their theatrical effect on the creation of an
imaginary world inside a cticious one, so they can juggle with the concepts
reality and Ilusin, and interweave the different layers of fiction and metafiction.
One might wonder about the reason why this "od' feature is still favoured by
the most popular and successful of our contemporary playwrights. The answer
may be rooted in the inherent qualities of this device. When an author inserts a
play within another one, he is at once changing the general approach to his work
of art. Some of his characters become ' actors' in the play embedded in the central
piece, while others now take the role of the audience, thus becoming one with us.
A cise relationship is established between stage and public, and the footlights
seem to disappear while we watch the new play "together.' Notwithstanding the
importance of this communion, this is not the sol motive that prompts the
author to use this technique. A play within-a-play helps the playwright to
reinforce, broaden and deepen the central motif in his main play; it becomes a
very valid means to make his audience think about the fictionality of real life
and the reality of fiction; and, if its form is that of the mock-rehearsal the
playwright is furnished with the formula that will enable him to point out the
flaws and enhance the virtues of the theatre, and to comment largely on the state
of the theatre of his time.
To illustrate the enormous possibilities of this practice, we have chosen three
plays by three contemporary playwrights: Michael Frayn's Noises Off (1982),
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Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing (1982), and Alan Ayckbourn's A Chorus of
Disapproval (1984). These three plays have been selected, not only because
they happcn lo be three grcat successes of modern English drama, bul because
thcy use the play-within-a-play formula with different purposes. As will be seen,
in the case of Noises Off this technique helps the author to pay his devoted
homage to the world of the theatre, in that of The Real Thing to express an
intelligent comment on its fictionality/reality, and in that of A Chorus of Disapproval to mirror, deepen and reinforce the central theme in the main play.

Noises Off
In Michael Frayn's Noises Off, this technique of inserting a play within another
one reaches its utmost possibilities, as the author plays each situation to the hilt.
This play was first performed at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, on 23
February 1982, and transferred on 31 March to the Savoy Theatre, London. It
was given The Best Comedy of the Year Award in 1982, and, after six years of
unrelenting popularity, it is still playing to full houses. A similar success was
achieved on Broadway -where it was also chosen as The Best Comedy of the Year
in 1984-, and in Madrid in 1985. In the following year, the play was staged in
Barcelona with yet another histrionic component that added an extra dimensin
to the fictitious element of fiction; the actors used two different languages:
Cataln in Noises Off, Spanish in NothingOn.
Noises Off is a skilful, hilarious, farcical and, at the same time, loving
comment on the very essence of the theatre, on the wizardry, and also on the
drudgery, effort and pain needed to make a man's dreamt world come to life.
Right from the moment we buy the programme, we are trapped by the rings of
circles within circles of the plot, unable to draw a clear line between fiction and
reality, as, next to the customary list of the cast, in order of appearance, ame of
director, e t c . , we are pleasantly surprised when we realize there is a second
Russian dol inside the first one: the cast of Nothing On. We are informed that
the play was written by Robin Housemonger, directed by Lloyd Dallas, and that
this is the "World premire prior to national tour.' This valuable information is
followed by a long and detailed list of dates and times of performance, rules of the
house, the production credits and the ames of the sponsors -sardines, contact
lenses, straitjacket and coffins are duly thanked to the different companies, and
special mention is given to the European Breweries for their "generous support"-.
Moreover, we are also given a summary of the successful careers of the actors,
containing such interesting details as:
G a r r y Lejeune (Roger Tramplemain)... Recently made his bigscreen'debut in Up the Virgin
Soldiers, l'or which be was nominated as Best. Male Newcomer under Forty in any British LowBudget Comedy Kilmby readersoftheSun newspaper.
Urooke Ashton (Vicki) is probably best knuwn as the girl wearing nothing but "good, honest,
natural f'roth' in the Hauptbahnhofbrau lager commercial. . . Cinemagoers saw her in The Girl
in Room H, where she played theGirl in Room312.

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Frederick Fellowes (Philip Brent)... was recently seen in the controversia! all-male versin o'
The Trojan Women.
I'oppy Norton-Taylor (Assislanl Stage Manager) is f'rom a family f'ound more of'ten on the
Boards ufleading companies than on the boards with touring cornpanies...

These witty digs at prize giving, advertising jargon, gratuituous changos in well
established theatrical conventions, snobbery, etc., are the suitable introduction
to a first Act where all the archetypal elements used in farces are mixed in a most
ingenious combination. A new play -Nothing On- is going to open in 24 hours
and the director -Lloyd Dallas- is having a dress rehearsal -not a technical one as
some of his actors think. Working against time, and some other minutiae -like
actors who do not know their exits and entrances, doors that do not open properly,
and assistants who explode in sudden outbursts of anger and jelousy- the small
company and its director manage, after many interruptions, to have a runthrough of a most interesting play that starts with a chatty help, Mrs Clackett who has not gone home yet because "they've gol colour here, and it's the roya!
what's it called"[l], and a young man, Roger Tramplemain, who works for
Squire, Squire, Hackman and Dudley -the house-agents in charge of renting the
"delightful sixteenth century posset mili. . . lovingly converted"-, and arrives
accompanied by Vicki "a desirable property in her early twenties"- with the idea
of having a few hours of relax in the presumably empty house, he is passingoff as
his own. Ilowever their plan is thwarted by the arrival of Philip and Flavia
Brent, who have come back home from Majorca for a few weeks, after having
dodged the British Inland Revenue. With five people -a daily help and two
couples- who should not be there, the play becomes an exciting game of hide-andseek, as they all keep on near-missing each other in their frantic exits and
entrances. Things get really out of proportion when two other visitors arrive; the
first one an od burglar, the second a real Arab Sheik who wants to rent a house.
In Nothing On Frayn has effectively included all the archetypal characters of a
farce: a simplistic char with a soft spot for the aristocracy, and a certain
malapropistic tendency; a young daring executive always ready for the sexual
game; a dumb blonde, noticeable by her good looks and small brain; a modern,
succesful writer, obsessed with escaping his duty as a tax-payer; a jealous wife
easily provoked; and a scruffy od burglar who complains because of the facilities
they give him to rob. Ilowever this is only one of the Iayers of our play as a
second one Noises Off- encircles and modifies it.
In the ' main' play, we are confronted with the > e a l ' characters behind those
present in the rehearsed one. Here, again, we find plenty of farce in store with a
whole gallery of comic types: the self-conceited actor who knows all the answers
but can never articlate them in a coherent and complete sentence; the young
actress hopelessly in love with the leading actor; the empty-headed starlet whose
mistakes stop the rehearsal again and again; the insecure actor who needs to be
given endless Stanislavskyan reasons to go on with the farce; the motherly
actress always ready to cheer up the others and soothe the friction; the drunken
actor constantly threatening the smooth running-on of the play; and, finally,
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among those in control of the show: a loud, sarcastic bul also patient director,
who is having a love affair with both the young starlet and his assistant, and
who, when trying to control the chaos on stage complains: "I'm starting to know
what God felt when he set put there in the darkness creating the world" (p. 376).
Ilowever, they do manage to end the rehearsal, and Lloyd can finally shout:
"Curtain!"
After the interval, the audience is immediately taken in by Frayn's audacity:
The whole set has been turned through 180 degrees' and now, one month later,
we are back stage while the actors and actresses are getting ready for an
afternoon performance! 21. Affairs have been developingbetween the members of
the company, and one of the sources of great comedy is to witness how the most
innocent deed glimpsed by somebody who suddenly pops in has a totally different
meaning and is the cause of endless rows and misunderstandings. Fray is still
alluding to all possible levis of fiction and ~reality,' truth and deceit.
This second act is specially effective when both the action on the stage and in
the wings becomes one. This happens, for example, when in Nothing On, Roger,
the young businessman, realizes there is something strange going on in that
house as things keep on appearing and disappearing, and peculiar noises[3| are
heard all over the place; in Noises Off his shoe-laces have just been tied together
by jealous Dotty, thus, when he makes his entrance, he falls over and enters
Nothing On muttering his next line: "There's something evil in this house" (p.
454), which, obviously, has different and deeper undertones now. Similar effeets
are achieved in Act III. By now the audience knows quite well which are the
lines, and the correct exits and entrances, therefore we enjoy the mistakes,
changes and improvisations the actors are forced to make. This feature is also
used to its utmost potential by having the silly dumb blonde delivering her lines
just as the first time, unable to deviate at all from the script, impervious to all the
changos the others are introducing. The whole play has to go on in spite of the
problems; even if objeets "move themselves on their own two feet," telephones are
wrenched from the wall, sardines seem to be all over the place, and sheiks and
burglars multiply without effort -by the end there are two prospective buyers and
three thieves, all arriving on cue, and delivering their lines without fault,
regardless of the fact that they keep on repeating everything. Actors and
actresses fight wildly notwithstanding their tiredness, drunkenness, rage and
jealousy; forgotten lines are invented, props are discarded, cues are missed, and
the whole play becomes a frenzied race towards its end, as if the whole company
believed that as long as the piece does not stop, nobody will notice anything, and
the show will never be saved[4]. Nothing On ends with a joke on the sardines
Mrs Clakett has kept cooking all through the play, Noises Off could go on
forever.
Michael Frayn makes us laugh at modern plays, at directors, stage managers,
actors and actresses, but we are also moved by the devotion with which all of
them put their skills together in order to crate such a fascinating world of
fiction. The whole performance becomes an exciting theatrical event, with its
misunderstandings, visual and aural jokes[5], and ingenuous use of props -the
countless plates of sardines, the three bunches of fiowers that are never given to
the right person, the threatening fireman's axe, and the drunken actor's
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innumerable bottles of whisky-. Furthermore, the perfect synchronization of

both plays, the ever increasing speed of the farce, and the frantic desperate finale
make it an excellent piece to watch.
It might be argued that it is nothing but a simple farce, but we couid report that
this was just what Michael Frayn wanted to write. A farce that would be the
epitome of al! farces, a summary of all its clichs, types and situations, a homage
to the genre and to the world of the theatre. Hesides, he also attempts "to show
something about the world" which, in this particular case, the author himself has
summarised in the following terms:
The actors in Noises Off have fixed the world by learning roles and rehearsing the ir responsos.
The f'ear that haunls them is that the unlearned and unrehearsed -the great dark chaos behind
the set, inside the heart and brain- will seep back on the stage. The prepared words will vanish.
The planned responses will be inappropiate. Their performance will break down, and they will
be lef't in frontofus naked and unashamed|6|.

And, as we have just witnessed, the great dark chaos finally engulfs the stage.
Unlike Mr Frayn, who, so far, has used the world of the theatre in his plays just
this once, our next playwright has made of this technique one of his most
successful and idiosyncratic hallmarks.

The Real Thing

From the very beginning one of Stoppard's constant obsessions has been "the
theatricality of theatre" as he believes that "theatre is not literature. It's an
event"|7j. Therefore it is not surprising that very often he has pinpointed the
very nature of theatre by breaking the barriers between fiction and ~real' life,
and let one merge with the other before the dazzled eyes of a bewitched audience.
We can get involved in the plight of two Flizabethan courtiers who only acquire
their own personality when whirled into Shakespeare's Hamlet, as happened in
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (1966), or the dealings of two critics,
who are trapped by the proceedings of the play they are about to review, as was
the case in The Real Inspector Hound (1968), or the physical exercises of a
group of jugglers who represent visually the acrobatic philosophic theories the
main character is concerned with in Jumpers (1972), or the basic pattern of
Wilde's The Importance of Being Krnest that shapes a study on art, literature
and politics in Travesties (1974), but probably one of the plays where this
opposition is more artfully exploited is in a piece whose core is precisely to find
The Real Thing.
The Real Thing, that opened at Strand Theatre on 16 November 1982, begins
in Noel Coward fashion with Max discovering that Charlotte, his wife, who is
supposed to have been on a business trip to Switzerland, has been unfaithful to
him; his cool, ironic reaction makes her leave him. In the second scene, we see
Charlotte living with another man, Henry, and we immediately presume he is
the lover they mentioned in the previous one. Ilowever, we soon discover
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Stoppard has cheated us, as this is the 'real' Ufe and the first scene was only part
of the piece Ilenry wrote for his actress-wife to play in. With great ingenuity the
author has destroyed our well rooted confidence, that makes us rely on our
capacity to discern between what is real and what is not.
By choosing a playwright, two actors, two actresses and a rebel-martyrplaywright as the main characters in his new play, Stoppard can juggle with the
notion of plays-within-plays to its utmost possibilities. In The Real Thing such
technique acquires new power, as the author inter-links as many as four
different plays, by four different dramatists, to give life to his own. Each one of
them adds a new layer to the central core, and increases its meaning and depth
by mirroring and commenting on the issues it presents -we might say that
anything of importance takes place at least twice in the play, and sometimes
even as many as three. Thus, for example, the scene in Henry's piece -House of
Cards , with which the play begins, acquires only its full significance if we
compare it to scene iii in the "real" play -when Annie walks on Max-, and to scene
ix -when llenry discovers Annie'sadultery.
In House of Cards, Max can learn about his wife's infidelity and still be
amazingly witty to continu to expound about digital watches, or joke about the
number of lovers his wife has -he gradually moves from one, to "It's only two, is
it?," then, "IIow do they all three get away at the same time? Do they work together, like the Marx Brothers?," and, finally, "A string quartet, you mean?"|8].
Ilowever, when he has to face the same ordeal in real life -scene iii-, he can only
react by abusing his wife with foul language, and assaulting her physically. In
the second Act -scene ix-, it is Henry's turn to deal with a similar scene, and, once
again, we realize real life is quite different from fiction. His ransacking Annie's
belongings, his doggedly questioning her, and his attempt to blackmail her,
differ totally from what he wrote in his play. Now, he does believe "in mess,
tears, pain, self-abasement, lossof self-respect, nakedness" (p. 72).
By pointing to this disassociation between a real and a fictitious experience is
Stoppard implying that the theatre fails to reproduce our actual feelings?
Knowing the author, the answer undoubtedly is: no. In a much quoted
interview|9| Stoppard described his writingassettingambushes for the audience
and, to my mind, this is what he is playing at here. Because, how do we know
what the "real' reaction is? By now Stoppard has shown us that we cannot rely
on our discernment, in scene i we made a mistake -it was fiction, not real life-, in
scene vi, we greenly repeated the mistake, only the other way round -this time it
was real life not fiction, the first few lines were only a joke between both aetorsand in scene x we fall into the same trap again: they are only rehearsing.
Furthermore, Stoppard has taken great care in structuring the three scenes (i.e.
i, iii and ix), establishing clear parallelisms between them, underscoring their
similarities, and making them shine as three different facets of the same jewel.
We conclude that theatre and life are nothing but ~the same thing.' Stoppard
starts scene iii with a explicit stage direction in which he indicates that the two
settings -those of scenes iii and ix- are "immediately r e m i n i s c e n t of the
beginning of scene i" (p. 35), then he recurs to use some of the most significant
moments in Western dramaflO] -as will presently be seen-, and ends by having
Henry opening Annie's present, after her trip to Scotland, and finding a tartn
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scarf, which al once reminds us of the miniature Alp in a giass bow!, that
Charlotte gave Max in House of Cards after her pretended visit to Switzerland.
Stoppard also connects the first scene to other different moments in the play. For
example, Max's searching of Charlotte's belongings, looking for hcr passport, is
repeated by Annie -scene iv- going through Henry's papis, by Billy, Charlotte's
new boyfriend, -se. vii- in search of her diaphragm, and by Ilenry -scene ixtrying to find a proof against Annie.
The other three dexterously inserted plays are also used to comment on the
main one, and to highlight the principal theme. At a given moment in the piece scene iv-, Annie, who is going to play in Strinberg's Miss Julie, rehearses with
Henry the famous love scene, but "she reads without inflection," and when he
tries to approch her "she pushes him away." The scene not only comments on the
artificiality of love, but it gives Henry the opportunity to expound on his inability
"to write love." "It is either childish or it's rude," he says "but it never sounds as
the real thing" (p. 40). At this point Stoppard moves from fiction to reality in a
very subtle way; Henry, triggered by the words in the rehearsed play, begins to
ponder about how to express love in fiction, from these theoretical considerations,
he moves to confess his 'real' love for Annie, but his tender avowal is cut in by
the bud as the alarm clock in his wristwatch goes off. As Hearsh Zeifman
observeslll], we immediately recall a famous similar sound which also stopped
another "theatrical* situation: the alarm clock at the beginningof The Maids.
Later on in scene v, Henry reads from the play written by Brodie -a Marxist
soldier jailed after trying to set fire to the Cenotaph by kindling the wreath
deposited there-, and uses this third place as his spring-board to start a witty and
brilliant speech about real literature and trashl 121 -ironically enough he has to
admit that as long as his wife does not marry again he will not be able to write
"the real stuff." In scene vi, Billy and Annie repeat the first Unes of this play as a
gambit in his amorous approach to her; in scene x, they rehearse the play for the
televisin, surprisingly enough every time Stoppard succeeds in taking us by
surprise, and making us reconsider our conception about reality and fiction. This
very same effect is achieved by the fourth play enmeshed in The Real Thing; I
am referring to 'Tis a Pity She's a Whore by Ford. Annie plays in it together
with Bill and, both at the end of scene vi, and in scene viii, we notice that the
boundaries between reality and artificiality have been dramatically blurred once
more; the lovers in the play are now becoming lovers in real life, and Annie, like
Annabella, is a whore, an adulteress.
The play has then as its core the opposition "real life' and "fiction' but, as has
become evident by now, the author means "the real thing' in all aspeets of life.
He tries to distinguish between real love and colonisation, real music and sham,
real literature and trash, real politics and propaganda, real sex and biology, real
self and our masks, and being really committed or only using a given system;
characteristically he does not give the precise and unique answer. The play has
coiled and wound so often between its own statements and counter-statements,
has zigzagged with such skilfulness between "the real' and "the faked' that we
are left still looking for " the real thing.
When watching the play we are immediately bewitched by Stoppard's dazzling
verbal games, his witty puns and clever jokes -we are on familiar ground-,
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however tho play soon reverts to more scrious matters, and, prompted by thc
desire to prove the opposition between reality and artificiality, baffles the
audience with the shocking audacities it runs into when combining both worlds.
In other instanees he even bores them with the conversationality and
shallowness of the lines, and, in spite of all the ingenious gimmicks used, we
remain "painfully 1 unmoved, unaffected by the author's cleverness and skill. We
might say, paraphrasing his famous scene about the wooden clubs and cricket
balls, that the ball has only travelled a few feet and we are left with sore hands.
Therefore, The Real Thing is probably one of the very few pieces in which the
use of a play-within-a play does, in the end, work against its general effect. The
continuous shifting of the action between two different levis of fiction
contributes to a progressive distancing and to a notorious estrangement between
actors and audience. Fortunately this is not the case with our next play.

A Chorus of Disapproval
Like all Alan Ayckbourn's previous works, A Chorus of Disapproval was first
staged at the Stephen Joseph Theatre-in-the-Round, Scarborough -the premire
took place on May 22, 1984-, and was subsequently transferred to I<ondon.
However with this new play Ayckbourn has accomplished yet another real feat,
as was not only been produced at the National Theatre -which had already been
the case with Bedroom Farce in 1977-, but it has been his first play to have
reached the main auditorium: the Olivier stage. Ilis od dream has finally come
truel 131.
Taking as the basis of his play the dealings of a group of amateur operatic
singers involved in the production of The Beggar's Opera, Ayckbourn has
created another of his true and effective comedies about our modera society,
about the hero 'malgr lu,' who, without really wanting to, is raised to the very
top, by those who want to use him, only to be thrown down from his pedestal once
he proves not to be what they had taken him for. As Sheridan Morley remarks:
"He exists purely in the eyes of others," and this fact "allows the author to make
his usual points about the unthinking cruelty of a supposedly neighbourly
society vastly more coherently and powerfully than usual"| 14].
The play begins with the always thrilling experience of a play-within-a-play.
The open stage of the Olivier becomes alive with the enthusiastic rendering, by
an amateur group called PALOS (i.e. The Pendn Amateur Light Operatic
Society), of the final notes of The Beggar's Opera. The song ends and "their*
audience explodes in great applause, obligingly Dafydd ap Llewellyn, the
energic, enterprising, life and soul producer, springs from the auditorium on to
the stage to thank all of them. After expressing his most sincere gratitude and
thanking audience and singers alike, the sound of applause dies and all the
artists leave without even congratulating their leader, who is left on his own on
the vast, empty stage. He begins to take off his wig and hat, jacket and cravat; a
woman hands him his ordinary clothes, as she mutters softly "well done"; then
the singer finishes changing, while the lighting turns to harsh working lights.
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This is the end of ~our' play, now Ayckbourn, in an extended flashback will
disclose how Guy Jones carne to sing, as Macheath, the leading figure in the
opera, and why nobody acknowledges him in his triumph.
As usual Ayckbourn excels in his characterizations, in p r e s e n t i n g his
suburbanites and their petty tragedies. The play is centred upon shy, easy-going,
obliging, diffident Guy Jones, the widower who wanting to s t a r t anew and
lookingfor company decides tojoin an amateur operatic society. He is the typical
Ayckbourn characterl 15|, a nobody -as Dafydd accurately tells his wife early in
the play-, who, due to his mute acceptance and passive attitude, disrupts the
established system. He is not lascivious, greedy or scheming but, like all great
hroes, he has a fatal flw: he cannot say *no.' Due to this unfortunate
shortcoming, he accepts the sexual advancements of two married ladies, promises to enquire about the plans for expansin the multi-national company he
works for has, and informs the owner of the piece of land in question, about the
plot against him. His sexual exploits, and definitive participation in the
financial intrigue mirror his dizzy career in the operatic society, as he zooms
from walk-on to the lead. But so much success does not unfortunately conclude
with happiness. The fall of his company means the end of his rise, his good
fortune forsakes him, and his kleptomania is condemned by a unanimous chorus
of disapproval. As Martin Hoyle has summarised: "with the Ayckbourn irony, he
ends updespised, vilifiedand mistrusted"[16].
Another felicitious creation is mad, garrulous, enthusiastic, big-mouthed
Dafydd ap Llewellyn. He is the director who cries: "I wish to God they were
professionals. Then I could sack them"| 17]. The courageous artist who only loses
heart when things really begin to get out of control "Trying to do The Beggar's
Opera without a Macheath is a bit of a non-starter even for Peter Hrook" (p. 53).
The husband who complains about his wife: "She's a bloody deep-freeze woman"
(p. 53), unaware of the fact that this very woman is having a very *hot' sexual
relationship with the man he is confiding in.
As always in Ayckbourn, the play teems with moments of great humour; they
s p r i n g from s i t u a t i o n s , m i s u n d e r s t a n d i n g s , s i m i l e s , r e p e t i t i o n s ,
exaggerations...always advancing the plot and defining the characters. This is
the case, for example, in the following exchange -here, we not only ~enjoy' the
crude joke, but also gain more insight into Dafydd's personality-:
Harina .. Is your wife local?
IJafydd No,dearest, he hasn'tgot a wife...
Harina No?
Guy No she died... she dicd, recently.
Harina Oh.dear.
Dafydd Oh dear, I didn't. know Ihat. Accident, was it?
Guy No. Not really it was.. (He searches for words)
Dafydd Delibrate. (He laughs)
Hanna (Kiercely) Dafydd...
Dafydd Sorry.sorry. 1 do begyour pardon. I'm sorry.Guy (p.22).

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All the other characters are also well contrasled and easy recognizable types,
and, as could be expected in a play that is going lo be counterpointed by The
Beggar's O p e r a , women are partcularly well characterised. Hannah Llewellyn
is the lypical Ayckbourn down-trodden wife, who, like Belinda in Season's
Greetings craves for a little bit of attention and love. While Fay Hubbard plays
the role of the local siren, who likes experimenting sexually with "anything at
all. Well, 1 suppose if it was excessively cruel or painful. . . I could draw the line"
(p. 35), and shows what sex can do to a woman, whereas Rebecca Huntley-Pike, a
ridiculous self-pitying character, proves what the lack of it can do to another one.
Technically the play is a rnost ingenious contrivance. As we have already
mentioned, it begins with the last scene and then proceeds to develop an extended
flash-back that expounds the reason why nobody congratlales Guy on his
moment of triumph. To have chosen The Beggar's Opera, as the piece to
counterpoint his own, is one of Ayckbourn's achievements. The songs from Gay's
politial satire become a most excellent comment on a new piece; they reflect and
mirror exactly the events happening in the main action, and therefore deepen
and broaden its particular subject, making it universal. In A Chorus of
Disapproval we not only find the sexual passions that ravaged the eighteenth
century opera, but also the greed and corruption of its rascis. Ayckbourn's
characters pro ve that even the quiet members of a jovial amateur operatic society
may become ferocious sharks when it comes to land-deals. As Ronald Hayman
has remarked: "It seems absurd to compare both playwrights but, like Brecht,
Ayckbourn finds that the rapacity of Gay's highwaymen and the double
standards of his respectable middle-class citizens have precise equivalents in
modern society. Ayckbourn's satire, of course, is gentler and more local than
Brecht's"|181.
As could be expected, the play was received with great applause and general
favourable reviews. Thus, for example, Ronald Hayman wrote in P l a y s
International: "One of his best plays yet. . . splendidly entertaining evening,
with enough laughter in it to cure all the most cronic of depressions"| 19], and
Sheridan Morley stated in Punch: "It is in my view far and away the most successful of his more recent and bleak journeys into mid-life crisis"[20|. While
John Peter summarized the event in The Sunday Times with these laudatory
words:
The Londun premire of'Alan Ayckbourn's A Chorus of Disapproval is a major event. When I
saw t in Scarborough last year I thought it was sharp ingenious and slightly prunable. Now,
with the National's 24-carat cast, it reveis itself as a serious comic masterpiece: brilliantly
constructed, ruthlessly observant, hilarious, and hard as nailsl21 ].

Notwithstanding these complimentary terms, Alan Ayckbourn has also had his
share of recriminations. Me has been accused of "writing too much'|22], and
often his plays are dismissed on the grounds of being too trivial. To my mind,
these reservations are often due lo a general wilful refusal to recognize the depth,
the darkness embedded in much of his work. His recurring themes a r e :
"insensitivity, egoism, domineering arrogance, the joylessness of middle-class
m a r r i a g e , t h e h o l l o w n e s s of s o c i a l a n d f a m i l y r i t u a l s , p a r e n t a l
198

misunderstanding, our repeated failure as human beings to find ways of living

together or communicating with each other"[23], and as has been pointed out
these subjects suggest Ibsen, Checkhov and Strinberg[24]. Like a new J a n e
Austen, he is interested in showing Hhe follies and nonsense' of the middle
classes, in pilloring their manners and social conventions. His observation of the
minutiae of human relationships in general, and of the deadly struggle between
husband and wife in particular, is accurate, sharp and to the point, and it should
be noticed that, in every new play, it is becoming darker, and more and more
lethally accurate. And although the tone is that of irrepressible laughter and
farcical humour, the scathing satire, the wry irony, the seriousness and
tragicomedy of everyday life is also present in all his works.
We might say that Alan Ayckbourn has succeeded in depicting the un-heroic
tragicomedy of our monotonous life with great preciseness, and, as Peter Hall
foresees: "In 100 years' time, when he's been forgiven for being successful, people
will read his plays as an accurate reflection of English life in the 1960s, 70s and
80s. They represent a very important document"[25].
* * * * *
This has been our analysis of the use of an od technique by three modern
playwrights. We conclude that, even if in the case of The Real Thing it did not
prove to be altogether satisfactory, in the other two instances, the possibility of
using the stage to reflect its own characteristics and to comment on its very essence enhanced the theatricality of the whole experience. The boundaries
between fiction and reality are dramatically blurred, and, once more, we admit
t h a t " the whole world is a stage.'

NOTAS

1. Michael Frayn, Moiss Off (Plays: One) (London: Methuen, 1985), p. 366. All f'urther page
ref'erences will be cited in my text.
2. In this particular aspect (i.e. having the actors perform again the play), Michael Frayn, as
Katherine Worth points out, has probably taken "a tip from Beckett's Play as well as from
Pirandello." "Parce and Mr Frayn," Modern Drama, XXVI, 1 (March 19831,47-59.
3. Noisesisall Frayn lets his actors utter backstage. In per'ectsilent moviestradition, actors can only
express their passions through gestures, looks, mime..., and the whole performance becomes a
wonderfully exhilarating experience underscored by its perf'ectsynchronization with the other play.

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4. The author himself has said about Noises Off that the play "attempls to spotlight the front that
people pul up all the time and the fact t h a t they will do a n y t h i n g so long as they keep up
appearances." Quoted by Peter Kemp in The Times Literary Supplement, 5.3.82.
5. As J. R. Taylor praises "when even the oldest one in the book, about the cactus someone is
inevitably going to siton, can be milked for so much genuino laughter, something must be going on
spectacularly right." Plays and Players,(April 1982),p.24.
6. See Introduction to the volume -I'lays: One- published by Methuen, p. xi.
7. Quoted by Tim Brassell when interviewed by Melwyn Bragg in "The South Bank Show," LWT,
broadcast on 26 November 1978. Cited in Tim Brassell, Tom Stoppard: An Assesment (London:
MacMillan, 1985).
8. Tom Stoppard, The Real Thing (London, Faber & Faber, 1986), p. 14. All further page references
will be cited in my text.
9. "Ambushes for the Audience: Towards a High Comedy of Ideas," (Tom Stoppard interviewed by
Roger Hudson, Catherine Itzin and Simn Trussler), Theater Quarterly, IV, 14 (1974). Reprinted
in N e w T h e a t r e V o i c e s o f the Seventies.ed. Simn Trussler (London: Methuen, 1981 ),pp. 58-69.
10. In a most interesting study of the play, Hersh Zeifman has accurately pointed to the significant
fact that the play starts with Charlotte -in House of Cards- slamming the front door and making
Max's pyramid of cards collapse, thus reproducing visually the breaking up of their relationship, and
auding to another shattered marriage as well, and to another famous door-slam, that of Nora's at the
end of Doll's House -we should also remember here that at a given moment Debbie, Henry's
daughter, calis him "Henry Ibsen"-; another literary reference is Max's proof of Annie's infidelity: a
handkerchief. See Hersh Zeifman, "Comedy of'Ambush: Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing," Modern
Drama, XX VI, 2 (June 19831,139-149.
11. Hersh Zeifman, ibid, p. 145.
12. The memorable image used by Henry to explain to Annie the difference between good and bad
writing is one of the best moments in the play: "This thing here . . . is for hitting cricket balls with. If
you get it right, the cricket ball will travel two hundred yards in four seconds . . . What we are trying
to do is to write cricket bats, so that when we throw up an idea and give it a little knock, it
might...travel...Now what we've got here is a lump of wood . . . and if you hit the ball with it, the ball
will travel about ten feet and you will drop the bat and dance about shouting 'Ouch!' with your hands
stuck into your armpits." (p.52). For an intelligent analysis of this scene see Thomas R. Whitaker,
Tom Stoppard (London: MacMillan, 1983), p. 165.
13. As he to Id Ian Watsun in 1980:"I'd love to conquer the Olivier. I think it'is'possible todo a modern
play there and I think it'is' possible todo a modern comedy there." Ian Watson, Conversation with
Ayckbourn (London: MacDonald Futura Ltd., 1981), p. 159.
14. Sheridan Morley, Punch, 14.8.85, p. 47.

200

15. We had already met him/her, l'or example, in Way Upstream -Alistair-,
Singular -Eva-, in Hedroom Farce -Nicky-.

Absurd Person

16. Martin Hoyle, Plays and Players, No. 385 (October 1985), p. 30.
17. Alan Ayckbourn, A Chorus of Disapproval (London: Samuel French, 1985), p. 47. All f'urther
page references will be cited in my Lext.
18. Ronald Hayman, Plays, (September 1985), 1,2,26.
19. Ronald Hayman, ibid., p. 26.
20.Sheridan Morley, Punch, 14.8.85, p. 47.
21. John Peter, The Sunday Times, 4.8.1985.
22. As Peler Hall has already warned him: "if you didn't write so much, they'd realise you are quite
good" Quoted by Ian Watson.op. cit., p. 172.
23. Michael Billington, Alan Ayckbourn (London: MacMillan,1983),p. 170.
24. In 1980, the author explained the new aim he had set himself: "I want to move further into the
Chekhovian feld, exploring attitudes to death, loneliness, etc. -themes not generally dealt with in
coniedy." lan Watson, o p cit., p. 129.
25. Quoted by Michael Church, "Shakespeare of the South Bank," The Sunday Times, 1.6.1986, pp.
41-42.

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