Rough Crossing is a 1984

1984 in literature

The year 1984 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*The book Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell is widely read....

 comedic

Comedy

Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...

 play by British playwright Tom Stoppard

Tom Stoppard

Sir Tom Stoppard OM, CBE, FRSL is a British playwright, knighted in 1997. He has written prolifically for TV, radio, film and stage, finding prominence with plays such as Arcadia, The Coast of Utopia, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, Professional Foul, The Real Thing, and Rosencrantz and...

, "freely adapted from Ferenc Molnár

Ferenc Molnár

LanguageFerenc Molnár was a Hungarian dramatist and novelist. His Americanized name was Franz Molnar...

's Play at the Castle." Set on board the S.S. Italian Castle, it follows world-renowned playwright

Playwright

A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...

s Sandor Turai and Alex Gal in their attempts to preserve, with the assistance of the unorthodox cabin steward

Chief Steward

A chief steward is the senior unlicensed crew member working in the Steward's Department of a ship. Since there is no purser on most ships in the United States Merchant Marine, the steward is the senior person in the department, whence its name...

 Dvornichek, the relationship of their composer, Adam Adam, and his love, the leading lady Natasha Navratalova, despite the interference of lothario

Lothario

Lothario is a male first name which came to connote an unscrupulous seducer of women.In The Impertinent Curiosity, a story-within-the-story in Don Quixote , by Miguel de Cervantes, a man named Anselmo coerces Lothario, his faithful friend, to test the virtue of Anselmo's wife, Camila...

 actor Ivor Fish.

History

Adapted from another play, The Play at the Castle by Hungarian dramatist Ferenc Molnár

Ferenc Molnár

LanguageFerenc Molnár was a Hungarian dramatist and novelist. His Americanized name was Franz Molnar...

. Another English-language adaptation of this play was written in 1926 by P. G. Wodehouse

P. G. Wodehouse

Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE was an English humorist, whose body of work includes novels, short stories, plays, poems, song lyrics, and numerous pieces of journalism. He enjoyed enormous popular success during a career that lasted more than seventy years and his many writings continue to be...

, entitled The Play's the Thing.

Synopsis

Playwrights Sandor Turai, Alex Gal and their new composer Adam Adam have embarked on the trans-Atlantic ocean liner, The S.S. Italian Castle and are about to surprise their actors Natasha Navratilova and Ivor Fish with the newest song from their nearly-finished (or so they hope) musical comedy, The Cruise of the Dodo. Unfortunately, they go to surprise the pair just as Ivor declares his love for Natasha, as Adam listens on in horror.



Sending Gal to take Adam back to his cabin to comfort him, Turai hatches a plan to convince Adam that what they actually overheard was Ivor's pathetic attempt at playwrighting. Turai stays up the whole night writing a scene for Ivor and Natasha to play as an alternative version of Turai's ending, with the declaration of love inserted

Story within a story

A story within a story, also rendered story-within-a-story, is a literary device in which one narrative is presented during the action of another narrative. Mise en abyme is the French term for a similar literary device...

 and played as a scene.



They are assisted by the sometimes dimwitted, sometimes brilliant, but always unconventional steward, Dvornichek. Despite many near revelations of Turai's plan, Adam and Natasha are reunited, and the playwrights find inspiration for a new comedy, courtesy of a script by the ship's captain.



Having scripts thrust upon them by amateurs is only one of the running gags of the play. Others include Dvornichek's inability to gain his sea legs, until the ship is thrust into a turbulent storm, when only he is able to stay upright; Natasha and Ivor's inability to keep their scripts, both for the stage and their life, straight; Adam's peculiar speech impediment—he has trouble starting a sentence and often must continue a monologue indefinitely for fear of not starting ever again; and a very long delayed Cognac for Turai.

Production history

"Rough Crossing" opened at the Lyttelton Theatre in London on 30 October, 1984 with the following cast:

DVORNICHECK: Michael Kitchen

Michael Kitchen

Michael Kitchen is an English actor and television producer, best known for his starring role as DCS Foyle in the British TV series Foyle's War.-Early life:...

TURAI: John Standing

John Standing

Sir John Ronald Leon Standing, 4th Baronet is an English actor.-Early life:Standing was born John Ronald Leon in London, the son of Kay Hammond , an actress, and Sir Ronald George Leon, a stockbroker...

ADAM: Andrew C. Wadsworth

GAL: Niall Buggy

Niall Buggy

Niall Buggy is an Irish actor who has worked extensively on the stage and screen in Ireland, the UK and the US. Some of his more well known roles include the lead in Brian Friel's, Uncle Vanya, for which he won an Irish Theatre Award and an Olivier Award for Dead Funny...

NATASHA: Sheila Gish

Sheila Gish

Sheila Gish was a British stage and television actress.She was born Sheila Anne Gash in Lincoln, studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and made her stage debut with a repertory company....

IVOR: Robin Bailey

Robin Bailey

Robin Bailey was an English actor. He was born in Hucknall, Nottinghamshire.Although often chosen for upper class and tradition-bound roles such as Judge Graves in Thames Television's Rumpole Of The Bailey, Bailey is perhaps most fondly remembered for his portrayal of Uncle Mort in I Didn't Know...

CHORUS: Christina Avery, Tracy Collier, Elizabeth Davies, Chrissie Kendall, Gail Rolfe and Debbie Snook, with David Hitchen.

Director: Peter Wood

Peter Wood

Peter John Wood was an English musician, born in Middlesex, England. In his early years he lived with his parents in Hythe Field Avenue, Egham, Surrey...

Designer: Carl Toms

Carl Toms

Carl Toms OBE was a British set and costume designer who was known for his work in theatre, opera, ballet, and film.- Education :...

Music by André Previn

André Previn

André George Previn, KBE is an American pianist, conductor, and composer. He is considered one of the most versatile musicians in the world, and is the winner of four Academy Awards for his film work and ten Grammy Awards for his recordings. -Early Life:Previn was born in...

 with Lyrics by Tom Stoppard.



Rough Crossing made its New York debut with the Jean Cocteau

Jean Cocteau

Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, María...

 Repertory Company in 1997, starring Craig Smith as Turai, Harris Berlinsky as Gal, Tim Deak as Adam, Elise Stone as Natasha, Charles Parnell as Ivor and Christopher Black as Dvornichek.



It played at Shakespeare and Company in Lenox, Massachusetts, during the summer of 2007.



A production was staged at the Yale Repertory Theatre

Yale Repertory Theatre

The Yale Repertory Theatre at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut was founded by Robert Brustein, dean of the Yale School of Drama in 1966, with the goal of facilitating a meaningful collaboration between theatre professionals and talented students. In the process it has become one of the...

 in New Haven, Connecticut in December 2008.

Music for the Play

André Previn

André Previn

André George Previn, KBE is an American pianist, conductor, and composer. He is considered one of the most versatile musicians in the world, and is the winner of four Academy Awards for his film work and ten Grammy Awards for his recordings. -Early Life:Previn was born in...

 wrote three original songs for the play, "This Could Be the One", "Where Do We Go From Here?", and "You Never Heard it From Me", with piano music available from the publishing company.

Critical reception

The New York Times' Alvin Klein wrote gave a 1994 production of the show a favorable review, but noted "there's not all that much dazzle in Mr. Stoppard's razzle; the pizazz is in the production."

CurtainUp reviewer Les Gutman calls the play "not terribly interesting", citing in particular a fundamental incompatibility between the source material's comedy and Stoppard's absurdist style.