Pam Gems Plays 8

Volume eight of a series of plays written by Pam Gems. The Father, The Dance of Death, Three Sisters and Stanley’s Women.

The Father - Pam Gems’ version of the play by August Strindberg.

The Dance of Death - Pam Gems’ version of the play by August Strindberg.

Three Sisters - By Anton Chekhov Version by Pam Gems - Like many people, I came to Chekhov first on the page. When I saw the plays in the fifties, productions were languorous, with rounded English vowels from gentlemen actors in tweeds, with slightly funny hats. There were three sorts of women: fat servants who didn’t count; chilly though, sometimes, sprightly ladies of uncertain age, who wore the paler dresses to denote the lead; and lumpy girls (sometimes they were pretty but wore their hair back and no eye makeup) who stayed out of the main acting area. Everything was very mournful and, quite often, leaves fell down from the flies, to the pluck of an uncertain guitar. There was a good deal of upstaging. I remember an Astrov who firmly detached his map of Africa from down left and rehung it upcentre before commenting on the climate. I thought it was all lovely. Then came a sea-change. Chekhov, amazingly, was funny. How did that happen? Hard to say. Sometimes, the perception of one director will do it - as when William Gaskill made people real and verminous in The Recruiting Officer, and took the ’La Sir’ out of Restoration. At all events, attention was drawn to the fact that Chekhov called both Pam Gems Plays Eight 3rd.indd 198 08/04/2022 11:01 FOREWORD 199 The Seagull and The Cherry Orchard comedies, and had hoped for laughs in Three Sisters. Drooping was out, briskness and irony, and jokes, were in - and so was pace.

STANLEY’S WOMEN is a screen adaptation of STANLEY, the Pam Gems play first presented at the Cottesloe by the National Theatre, in London, UK, on February 1st, 1996, starring Antony Sher, directed by John Caird. STANLEY won an Olivier Award for ’Best Play, ’ and a Writer’s Guild award for ’Best West End Play.’ The production was subsequently transferred to The Circle In the Square Theatre in New York City.