Three Sapphic Plays
GLYCERINE TEARS
Two widows, Carla and Lulu, enjoy afternoon tea with panache and scrupulous ritualism . Carla is recently bereaved, but is quite insouciant about this. The ceremonies of high tea are more important to them than the deaths of husbands and lovers. In relation to the last they swerve from the flippant to the sadistic.
Their conversations about fatal mishaps are entirely detached, witty, catty, frothily cruel, and exulting in the absurd. The inner life of Carla and Lulu’s (if any) is a mystery. Nevertheless, they seem glued by misandroid appetites..
The is playlet owes not a little to Genet and Beckett.
THE OULD TRIANGLE
The play takes place within a dilapidated and grubby hotel. An Irish woman, Earwig, controls the understocked bar. She fled Ireland owing to an affair with a voluptuous Italian nun, Sister Gorgonzola, who is ‘defrocked’ and compelled to return to her home: Naples.
A ‘bull dyke’ enters: Mag. She is tall, muscular, and tough, with short hair, bizarre make-up, and a brace of rings which pierce her lips, tongue, nose and ears. She and Earwig engage in personal and racist insults. Mag complains about the lack of clientele when Cicely enters, having just returned from Royal Ascot. She is exclusively attired and sports a wildly exuberant hat.
It transpires that Cicely relishes ‘rough trade’, and Mag loves bringing toffs down to earth. They warm to one another, and embrace on a seedy sofa. We jump in time, and Earwig appears as a newly graduated celebrant. She weds the two. They in turn invite Earwig to join them in their honeymoon: to Naples.
NATURE STRIPS
Three well-formed women, naked except for their differently coloured knickers: blue, apricot and brown: those of Antoinette, Madeleine, and Glenys. Antoinette is high posh and supercilious. Madeleine is middle- class and opportunistic. Glenys is street-smart working class, and a dissembler.
Antoinette sits upstage centre at a table. Madeleine and Glenys sit at opposite sides, angled.
Champagne is poured, which Glenys abhors. She is forced to remove her knickers etc., then watch Antoinette and Madeleine dildo one another. Glenys refuses further involvement, and suffers at the hands of violent male homosexual backroom staff and enforcers.