Synopsis:
ADA KAHN, the daughter of the 'Chicken Soup' family, marries DAVE SIMMONDS. They move to an isolated house in Norfolk where they struggle through a back-to-the-land experiment. DAVE makes furniture by hand.
Friends and family visit them throughout their 12 rural years charting and commenting on the fortunes of their experiment. It doesn't work, but they end gratified to have had the courage to try.
Excerpt:
"What do you think I am, Ronnie? You think I'm an artist's craftsman? Nothing of the sort. A designer? Not even that. Designers are ten a penny. I don't mind Ronnie - believe me I don't. (But he does.) I've reached the point where I can face the fact that I'm not a prophet. Once I had - I don't know - a - a moment of vision, and I yelled at your Aunt Esther that I was a prophet. A prophet! Poor woman, I don't think she understood. All I meant was I was a sort of spokesman. That's all. But it passed. Look, I'm a bright boy. There aren't many flies on me and when I was younger I was even brighter. I was interested and alive to everything, history, anthropology, philosophy, architecture - I had ideas. But not now. Not now Ronnie. I don't know - it's sort of sad this what I'm saying, it's a sad time for both of us, Ada and me, sad,and yet - you know - it's not all that bad. We came here, we worked hard, we've loved every minute of it and we're still young…"
Reviews:
A call for dignity in living, an individual shout of rejection in the face of scepticism and debased values … Wesker writes entirely from the heart. His craftsmanship is impeccable …It remains a great compassionate sigh of a play and our theatre is the richer for Wesker's endowment of talent…
Robert Muller, Daily Mail
