The Man Who Pays the Piper

Thursday evening, and an opportunity to see the  new play at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond.

The Orange Tree is a small theatre, seating only 172, and was the first one to stage plays in the round.   The stage is in the middle, with seating all around at ground floor level, together with more upstairs, again all round on a balcony.   Behind the balcony, there are also standing room places, with a very useful bar to lean on; if you are short, then it is quite comfortable, but thes tanding room area definitely isn't designed for the tall - unlike most places, which seem to think that no-one is under 5'10".

The current play is "The Man Who Pays the Pipe" by Gladys Bronwen Stern, a prolific novelist and playwright from the 1920 and 1930swho died in 1964 and is now largely ignored, despite the quality of her work.

"The Man Who Plays the Piper" focuses on the fact that the person, man or woman, who pays all the bills has power over those whom they support.    Economic power is real; if  you are not financially independent, then you aren't really in a position to make any decisions on how you want to live your life.   But it also show how this power can become addictive in those who have it, so that they come to enjoy exercising power for its own sake, knowing that those who are dependent on them are in the end powerless.

A very thoughtful play, with much in common with the plays of other women writers from the suffragette period and just after who featured in the Orange Tree Theatre's season a couple of years ago for forgotten women writers.