The Revengers' Comedies (Parts I and II) (1992)
Previews begin July 9 ACT is proud to present the American premiere of The Revengers' Comedies, a fiendishly clever two-part comic thriller by England's foremost living playwright. The creator of over 40 plays, Ayckbourn is best known to ACT audiences for Woman in Mind, A Chorus of Disapproval, Absurd Person Singular and Relatively Speaking.
Ayckbourn borrows from Alfred Hitchcock's classic film, Strangers on a Train, to set this wickedly funny plot in motion. Two desperate people meet on a bridge and accidentally save each other's lives. Karen is young, wealthy and dramatic, in contrast to Henry, a lethargic man in mid-life crisis, abandoned by his unfaithful wife and fired by an equally disloyal employer. One convinces the other that the only reason to go on living is to wreak havoc on the people who drove them to despair. In order to avoid detection, they swap revenges. Karen, with no marketable skills whatsoever, blazes her way into Henry's corporate lifestyle, while Henry copes with the eccentrics on a country estate and the unknowing victim of Karen's wrath.
The resulting chaos, suspense and laughter spill over into two performances.