Home

by david-storey

Hardcover. First edition, with erratum slip attached to cast list page. Very good (page block head is slightly marked) in good, unclipped, mylar-protected slightly scuffed and shelfworn, with sunned spine; taped repair on reverse to nick at spine head. Interior is clean and sound. TS

Genres: Plays

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1971

Reviews

[Bobby Sullivan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I... Er... Looking... Yes? For a point... Hm... Nope. Didn't find one.

[غزاله · Rating 1 out of 5]

خیلی حوصله سربر و یکنواخت بود. اصلن چی بود؟ من که متوجه نشدم. شاید رو صحنه چیزی برای ارائه داشته باشه ولی حتا به اینم مطمئن نیستم. ولی خب دلم میخاد لااقل یک بار اجرای این کار رو ببینم. هرچند....

[Anton Segers · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tegenvaller. Toen het een halve eeuw geleden uitkwam maakte dit stuk furore, maar vermoedelijk wegens de sterbezetting - Ralph Richardson en John Gielgud - want de tekst bestaat uit veel geklets en weinig dramatische kracht. Met uitzondering van de eerste scène, waar je nog subtekst bij kan voelen.

[Annette Kane · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well written dialogue but nothing happens. Would be better onstage if it was well acted, probably.

[Mary · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dull, unengaging play in which nothing happens.

[John Roman Baker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of the plays that I have read and seen I find ' Home ' to be David Storey's best. It was first staged at the Royal Court Theatre in London, in 1970 with an excellent cast. I have read the play several times and feel that it is better seen than read. This is a personal feeling as Ralph Richardson, John Gielgud, Mona Wasbourne and Dandy Nichols were in my opinion the definitive cast, and it is impossible to see actors and their gestures and facial expressions on the written page. One example of this is the tears that Gielgud sheds and I feel no other actor could compare with him. The ' home ' is an institution and also the homes that the four main characters once lived in, and perhaps will never live in again. The one criticism of the play is the fifth character; a young man whose main purpose is to lift chairs and tables and take them off stage. I have been both a director and playwright in my lifetime and would have left these objects onstage, and the image of this young man who is also in the institution lifting the garden table seemed to me a contrived action that was meant to startle. For me it was not needed, but slightly pretentious and attention grabbing. The dialogues and more subtle movements of the other four was enough to convey the strange and beautiful poetry of the play.

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting play that I picked up because I remembered that it had starred John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson at the beginning, and I think visualizing them in the main roles improved my enjoyment. It takes place in what we now call an inpatient mental health facility, and, if analyzed on that level, it seems to take a romanticized and none-too-accurate look at the people who have to live there. Of course, my knowledge of the UK's mental health system is less than nil, so perhaps they underwent a deinstitutionalizing wave as the US did, and the characters in the play would now be on the street.

I think it works best not as a play serious about its characters except as they show us a civilization that is rowing away in the middle of the ocean but unable to either face the truth or talk to the other people in the lifeboat about what to do.

[Susanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

3/6 points, play-script, 5 people in parallel unconnected, intriguing, not sure about overall message though…

[Chris Millington · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just performed this play. A joy to perform. It's a wonderfully lyrical play - very funny and poignant and sad. David Storey went to my school so it was good to pay tribute to an old school alumnus.

[Elizabeth Creaghan · Rating 1 out of 5]

I haven't read a play in a while and this one was on the shelf where I am sat at work today so I thought I'd give it a read. thank goodness it is so short because this is not an engaging play!

[Steven · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mysterious play set in a mental asylum whose occupants are eerily normal.

[Rachel Swords · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bit of a weird play. I'm a theatre nerd, but I didn't really get the point of the plot or setting. Maybe I should do some background research and try it again.

[Shawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this play after seeing (in an obit) that it had originally featured John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson. Sadly, I haven't been able to locate even a clip from that original production and I suspect that I'd have enjoyed reading this much more had I been able to hear it in my head in the voices of those two amazing actors.