By Jean Giraudoux Directed Alex Henderson Season: 29 November - 6 December 1969 The play is a kind of poetic and comic fable set in the twilight zone of the not-quite-true. At the Cafe Chez Francis, a group of promoters plot to tear up Paris in order to unearth the oil which a prospector believes he has located in the neighbourhood. These grandiose plans come to the attention of The Madwoman of Chaillot who is ostensibly not normal in her mind but who is soon shown to be the very essence of practical worldly goodness and common sense. She sees through the crookedness of the prospector and insists that the world is being turned into an unhappy place by the thieves and those who are greedy for worldly goods and power. At a tea party attended by other "mad" women of Paris, she has brought together representatives of the despoilers of the earth and wreckers of its happiness, and has them tried and condemned to extermination. In a scene which mounts into the realms of high poetic comedy, she sends the culprits one by one, lured by the scent of oil and undreamed-of riches, into a bottomless pit which opens out of her cellar. The exodus of the wicked is accompanied by another and more beautiful miracle: Joy, justice and love return to the world again. Cast: The Waiter - Hylton Sweeney The Little Man - Terrance O'Cain The Prospector - David Warwick The President - John Bateman The Baron - John Smyth Street Singer - Islay McLeod Ragpicker - Arthur Chapman Deaf Mute - Brian Brodie The Broker - Murray Beattie Dr Jadin - Reg Carr Policeman - Jim Erikson Pierre - Donald Bruce Sergeant - Roger Southcott Sewer Man - Brian Brodie The Cook - Linley Holland Shoelace Pedler - Alison Alston Therese - Elizabeth Massey Flower Girl - Raynor Scandrett Irma - Jan Watson |
Constance (The Mad Woman of Passy) - Beryl McLeod
Gabrielle (The Mad Woman of St Sulpice) - Daphne Milburn
Josephine (The Mad La Concorde) - Joan Peel
The Ladies - Islay McLeod, Carole Rout, Raynor Scandrett
The Presidents - John Bateman, John Smyth, Reg Carr
The Prospectors - David Warwick, Murray Beattie, Roger Southcott
The Press - John Bateman, John Smyth, Reg Carr
The Adolphe Bertaut - Murray Beattie, Roger Southcott, David Warwick