Cressida

by Nicholas Wright

John Shank is an actor, talent-scout and trainer of boy players in the seedy and glamorous backstage world of London theatre in 1630s. Women are still not allowed on stage, their roles being taken by precocious boys. Shank has been one of the best, but is now grudgingly reduced to teaching others the tricks of the trade...

96 pages, Paperback

First published October 9, 2014

About the author

Nicholas Verney Wright (1940, Cape Town, South Africa) is a British dramatist. He was born in Cape Town, attended Rondebosch Boys' School and from the age of six was a child actor on radio and on the stage. He came to London in 1958 to train as an actor at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) and subsequently worked as a floor-assistant in BBC Television and as a runner in film, notably John Schlesinger's "Far From the Madding Crowd." He started work at the Royal Court in 1965 as Casting Director and became, first, an Assistant Director there and then the first Director of the Royal Court's Theatre Upstairs, where for several years he presented an innovatory programme of new writing. From 1975 - 1977 he was joint artistic director of the Royal Court and he was subsequently a member of the Royal Court Theatre's Board. He is former literary manager and associate director of the Royal National Theatre, and a former member of the National Theatre Board. In 2014 and 2015 he will be the judge of the Yale Drama Series competition for playwrights. His publications include 99 Plays, a survey of drama from Aeschylus to the present day, and Changing Stages, co-written with Richard Eyre.

Reviews

[Nick Jones · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is jolly, but I’m not sure if it is much more than that. A play about the theatre, set not long before the closing of the theatres in the seventeenth century – presumably Cressida takes place in 1635 and ’36. John Shank is an actor, also procuring the boys for the women’s roles. So, what’s it about? I don’t know really. Maybe it’s about theatricality, exploitation, maybe other things, but if it is about anything of any great interest I seemed to have missed the point. I don’t know any of Nicholas Wright’s other works so can’t place Cressida into an authorial context. As I said, it’s quite jolly, but I found it a little pointless.