The Kitchen
Set in the basement kitchen of a large restaurant, thirty chefs, waitresses, and kitchen porters, slowly begin the day preparing to serve lunch. The central story tells of a frustrated love affair between a high-spirited, young, German chef, PETER, and a married English waitress, MONIQUE.
PART ONE slowly builds to a frenzy of serving. PART TWO is a lyrical period - the kitchen porters and chefs linger after serving lunch, and talk about their dreams of a better life. In PART THREE everyone returns for the slower evening service during which PETER, finally turned down by MONIQUE, goes berserk and smashes the gas leads to the ovens.
The proprietor, bewildered by PETER'S violence, the nature of which he cannot understand, asks his workers what more is there to life than work, money and food.
The Wesker Trilogy - Chicken Soup with Barley
The play spans twenty years
- 1936 to 1956 - in the life of the communist Kahn family: SARAH
and HARRY, and their children, ADA and RONNIE.
Beginning with the anti-fascist demonstrations
in 1936 in London's East End and ending with the Hungarian
uprising in 1956, the play explores the disintegration of
political ideology parallel with the disintegration of a family.
It is the son, RONNIE, who is the most deeply affected and
turns on his mother who insists on remaining a communist.
Her reply ends the play on a note of desperate optimism.
The Wesker Trilogy - Roots
Explores the theme of 'self-discovery'.
BEATIE BRYANT, daughter of Norfolk farm labourers, has fallen
in love with RONNIE KAHN from the 'Chicken Soup' family. She
returns from London to visit her family all of whom await
the arrival of RONNIE. During the two-week waiting period
BEATIE is full of RONNIE'S thoughts and words. To greet him
the family gathers for a huge Saturday afternoon tea. He doesn't
turn up. Instead comes a letter saying he doesn't think the
relationship will work. The family turns on BEATIE. In the
process of defending herself she finds, to her delight, that
she's using her own voice.