The Dice House is a black comedy

Black comedy

A black comedy, or dark comedy, is a comic work that employs black humor or gallows humor. The definition of black humor is problematic; it has been argued that it corresponds to the earlier concept of gallows humor; and that, as humor has been defined since Freud as a comedic act that anesthetizes...

 by Paul Lucas

Paul Lucas

Paul Lucas is the name of:* Paul Lucas , French merchant, naturalist and traveller* Paul Lucas , French genealogist and Augustinian friar, known as Père Simplicien...

, first staged in June 2001 at the Belgrade Theatre

Belgrade Theatre

The Belgrade Theatre is a live performance venue seating 858 and situated in Coventry, England. It was the first civic theatre to be built after the Second World War in Britain and as such was more than a place of entertainment...

 in Coventry. Inspired by Luke Rhinehart's The Dice Man

The Dice Man

The Dice Man is a novel published in 1971 by George Cockcroft under the pen name Luke Rhinehart and tells the story of a psychiatrist who begins making life decisions based on the casting of dice. Cockcroft wrote the book based on his own experiences of using dice to make decisions while studying...

, it explores the nature and limitations of free will

Free will

"To make my own decisions whether I am successful or not due to uncontrollable forces" -Troy MorrisonA pragmatic definition of free willFree will is the ability of agents to make choices free from certain kinds of constraints. The existence of free will and its exact nature and definition have long...

.

Synopsis

Dr Drabble, a psychiatrist, blackmails one of his recently cured patients - the naif, Matthew - to kidnap his wife from the Dice House, where she is undergoing therapy. He explains that she has been brainwashed by a second psychiatrist - Dr Ratner - into pursuing 'Dice Therapy', a process by which patients are encouraged to make all decisions based on the whim of dice.

The plot is then sidelined to make way for a series of comic skits, based around the amusing activities of the residents of the Dice House: pubic shaving, cross dressing, car theft, murder and one man's battle against the Slow Assassins. Dr Drabble's ill-considered scheme thus plays out as farce in the background, as it becomes transparent he is more insane than his wife.

In a dramatic climax, the fate of both doctors is determined by a single roll of the dice.

Performance history

The Dice House premiered in June 2001 at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry, transferred to the Islington Theatre in March the same year and was partially rewritten for the Edinburgh Drama Festival in August 2002. Its first performance in London's West End was at the Arts Theatre in 2004, and the play has subsequently been performed by the New Stages Theatre Club in Wandsworth in July 2005 and most recently at Islington's Hen & Chickens Theatre in January 2009. Performances have also been reported in the USA, Norway and Estonia.