bt l ew lesson 5—man of the moment lesson five man of the moment

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Lesson 5—Man of the Moment

Lesson Five

Man of the Moment

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Alan Ayckbourn, born in 1939, British playwright, actor, and theater director, best known for his farcical dramas about the British middle class. He went straight into the theatre as a stage manager after leaving school. He is now a full-time theatre director. Working both at the Royal National Theatre in London and at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in the Round, Scarborough. He has written over 50 comedies, many of them works of startling technical ingenuity with surprising quantities of pain and sorrow in them.

I.I. Author Author

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He is one of the world’s most

commercially successful dramatists, and has demonstrated over a long and constantly evolving career that it is possible to both a popular and a serious artist. He has been called “wildly funny and deeply tragic”, “a left-wing writer using a right-wing form”, and “the most acute analyst of contemporary British society”, although he occasionally insists that his only intention is to entertain.

I.I. Author Author

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Ayckbourn’s plays are often noted for their interesting use of theatrical sets, as in The Norman Conquests, a trilogy of plays that show, respectively, simultaneous events in the dining room, living room, and garden of the same house during one weekend. The plays House (1999) and Garden (1999) take place on a single day and were designed to be performed simultaneously, by the same cast, in adjacent theaters. As Ayckbourn’s writing has matured, the themes of his plays have become more serious and the farce has become darker.

I.I. Author Author

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II.II. Synopsis of Synopsis of Act IAct I

The present text is Act II. The story goes like this in Act I: It was 17 years ago that Vic Parks and Douglas Beechey first met, when Vic attempted to rob the bank where Douglas worked. Douglas foiled the robbery and became a hero, feted by the media. Meanwhile Vic was sentenced to a 10-year prison sentence. Seventeen years on and where are they both? The media attention soon faded for mild mannered Douglas and he drifted back into

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II.II. Synopsis of Synopsis of Act 1Act 1

obscurity, leaving the bank to work for a double glazing company. Vic meantime discovered an interest and talent for writing whilst in prison and proceeded to develop a successful publishing and then TV career upon finishing his sentence. Now living in a villa, complete with swimming pool, in Spain, Vic has agreed to appear in the TV show “Their Paths Crossed”. The host Jill Rillington intends to bring together, 17 years on, Vic with Douglas Beechey—the unassuming clerk who foiled the robbery.

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II.II. Synopsis of Synopsis of Act 1Act 1

Jill hopes to exploit the irony that although

Douglas had a brief 15 minutes of fame and married his true love—incidentally maimed during the raid—the man who has found true success and celebrity is the villain. Expecting jealousy, envy and bitterness from Douglas.

Now they are to be reunited at Vic’s Mediterranean home. How will they react to seeing each other once again and what effect will their meeting have on Vic’s long suffering wife Trudy?

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III. Archive for Man of the Moment Man of the Moment is one of Ayckbourn’s typically very dark comedies in which nothing is quite what it seems or as clear cut as appearances would first indicate. The play was presented in London in 1990, becoming a joint winner of the Evening Standard Best Comedy Award in the same year. In 1990 it was also nominated for “the Play of the Year”.

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IV. An Interview with Alan Ayckbourn Clare Coulson interviews Sir Alan Ayckbourn and gives a brief insight into the mind of Britain’s most famous contemporary playwright.Q: Where do you get your inspiration from?A: Various places, snatches; fragments; I wait for them to accumulate. I never start a play with one idea, usually several, usually one is the theme. The theme really just occurs, I sometimes look around deliberately but most ideas have been expressed before, it’s finding a different way to tell it. I've gone through various convoluted ways of telling stories, some interesting and unusual,

•

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Damsels in Distress (three plays currently

showing at Durham’s Gala Theatre) are

examples of that, they share the same set

and company but change their personality

with each totally different play. A lot of good

work comes from actors working together and

trusting one another. I don’t know where the

ideas come from in the end is the short

answer!

IV. An Interview with Alan Ayckbourn

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Q: You said that there’s a bit of you in every

character and that there was a bit of your

mother in Mrs. Saxon, I was wondering how

this is the case as your characters are so

diverse and such separate entities?A: There’s bits of me. I can remember writing

Kelly, feeling like Kelly. They all stem from

something within myself. I think there is a

male and female side within all of us. Mine are

relatively balanced. There seems to be quite a

lot


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to draw on because of this. Men have a lot of

problems writing about women because they

don’t see the similarities.


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Plot: seventeen years after the bank raid, the ex-bank

robber and the hero are brought together again to

see how different fate has affected their lives.

Scene: in Vic’s Spanish villa

Protagonists: Vic (the ex-convict) & Douglas (the hero)

Conflicts: go to Conflicts

Climax: go to Climax

Writing techniques: go to Writing devices

Theme: go to the next page

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Theme

Man of the Moment is a play about, among

other things, representation, truth, reality,

hyper reality and hyper consumerism, above

all, a meditation on fame and morality.

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Conflicts

Major conflict: Vic v.s Douglas

Minor conflicts: Vic v.s Trudy

Vic v.s Sharon

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Climax

Sharon killed Vic in the swimming pool,

bringing every conflict to a close.

To be continued on the next page.

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Study the following sentences. Pay attention to the tone.

1. Do you know the reason why you’re sitting there like a great bowl of pork dripping? (Para. 14)

2. It comes of being surrounded by people who nod at him all day at work. He prefers us all to nod at home too… (Para. 36)

sarcastic tone

Sarcasm

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3. And if you are honestly clinging on to life in the hope of getting one tiny scrap of care and consideration back from that self-centered, selfish man, then all I can say is, you’d better jump in there now, Sharon, and cut your losses. (Para. 104)

4. Nobody would miss her except the national union of bakers… (Para. 137)

sarcastic tone

Sarcasm

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What is sarcasm?

Sarcasm is a form of irony that is widely used in English especially when people are being humorous. Generally the sarcastic speaker or writer means the exact opposite of the word they use, often intending to be rude or to laugh at the person the words are addressed to.

Sarcasm

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Many people actively pursue fame,

or at least it, as a way to advance

their careers. But fame may also be driven

by emotional needs, and can lead to

harmful expectations and thinking on

both sides.

creative

endure

hidden

distorted

Fill out the blanks.

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The Dark Side of Fame

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Author J. K. Rowling in the aftermath of her _______ with “Harry Potter” commented that people wanted her emotions “to be very . They wanted me to say, ‘I was poor and I was unhappy, and now I've got money and I'm really happy.’ And it's what we all want to see when the winner wins the big prize, you know. You want to see some jumping up and down, for everything to be very .” But that is not her reality, she said: “The fact is, I was living a very life. There was no involvement, there was no pressure. Life was very pure and it became more complicated.”

quiz

pure press


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uncomplicated

success

simple

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When you are enough, it seems, you are no longer simply a human being to some journalists, who seem to use fame as an to set aside ordinary considerations of respect and propriety. People who “need”

fame may tolerate a lot of to get more attention. Robert B. Millman, professor of psychiatry at Cornell Me

dical School, developed the of acquired situational narcissism to explain some of the grandiose and other distortions people can be to after gaining high levels of fame.

disrespect

concept

fantasiesprey


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famous

excuse

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Someone with a true of narcissism may have a grandiose sense of self-importance, view of their talents, with fantasies about power, love and success. But they may also suffer from _________ relationships, substance abuse and _________ behaviour.


unstable

erratic

disorder

exaggerated

bt l ew lesson 5—man of the moment lesson five man of the moment

Documents

moment lesson

ew lesson

moment slide

raidthe man

moment ayckbourns plays

synopsis of act

vic parks

moment alan ayckbourn