The Changing Room, Home, The Contractor: Three Plays

by David Storey

The Changing Room:
This intense drama was a hit in London and later on Broadway. Set in the changing room of a Rugby League Team in the North of England, The Changing Room explores the nature of competition and violence as practiced on and off the field before, during after an important match. "Gritty and grandiose...One of David Storey's best plays."-London Times "David Story's groundbreaking play is enthralling."-Independent

Home:
On a bare terrace stroll two old gentlemen, who greet each other courteously. They discuss topics the past, the weather, old friends, moustache-styles, and the war. Are they perhaps in a small private hotel? But all is not quite what it seems, and soon enough we realize we are actually on the grounds of a mental hospital, and these old men are patients. With astonishingly sparse dialogue, by the time the day is over and the shadows fall, we as an audience are moved to compassion, sympathy, and respect for these extraordinarily ordinary men. Sir John Gielgud and Sir Ralph Richardson starred in the London and New York productions. New York Drama Critics Award, Best Play of the Year.
"It is a remarkable play and, a notable one...striking and strangely moving and dramatic ." - New York Post
"Compassionate and moving. The writing is extraordinarily pungent... Mr. Storey writes brilliantly for actors... A lovely play, a sad play, and a play to lose yourself in." -The New York Times

The Contractor:
Originally staged at New York's Chelsea Theater Center, "The Contractor" is ostensibly about the raising of a tent for a wedding on an English estate. The play's action seems simple: workmen raise a tent, decorate it and finally pull it down. But the small specifics of everyday life are used to explore the inner hostilities, love and conflict of these apparently ordinary people. "David Storey uses the most ordinary situations to the most extraordinary effect"; observed John J. O'Connor in The New York Times, "his tent metaphor gradually encompassing such themes as the disintegration of the family, the social structure, the British Empire and even Western Civilization. The language is almost always casual, yet incessantly ominous. The selectivity is brilliant."

248 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1975

About the author

David Storey was an English playwright, screenwriter, award-winning novelist and a former professional rugby league player. Storey was born in Wakefield, Yorkshire in 1933, and studied at the Slade School of Art.

His first two novels were both published in 1960, a few months apart: This Sporting Life, which won the Macmillan Fiction Award and was adapted for an award-winning 1963 film, and Flight Into Camden, which won the Somerset Maugham Award. His next novel, Radcliffe (1963) met with widespread critical acclaim in both England and the United States, and during the 1960s and 70s, Storey became widely known for his plays, several of which achieved great success.

He returned to fiction in 1972 with Pasmore, which won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Award and was short-listed for the Booker Prize. Saville (1976) won the Booker Prize and has been hailed by at least one critic as the best of all the Booker winners. His last novel was Thin-Ice Skater (2004).

David Storey lived in London. He was married and had four children.