Roundelay: Concept by Alan Ayckbourn
This page contains Alan Ayckbourn's original notes to the Stephen Joseph Theatre exploding the concept and themes of Roundelay.Roundelay is a collection of five short plays which are intended to be seen in random order on any given evening.
On any given night, there will be an interval after the first three.
The plays are (in no particular order):-
○ The Judge
○ The Novelist
○ The Politician
○ The Star
○ The Agent
Like the dance after which they are named, the plays are all related, some sharing characters with others, some providing sequels to others, whilst themselves being 'prequels' to other ones.
The over-riding theme is memory.
○ What we choose to remember and to forget.
○ False memories, the past personal histories we distort with time.
○ The memories we conveniently choose to forget.
○ The pasts we invent for ourselves or choose to lie about.
○ The memories that age takes away from us.
○ The long forgotten memories which time, seemingly irrationally, restores to us.
○ The memories of the same events the details of which no two people ever quite share.
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