At the Huntington, director Aitken returns to ‘Bedroom Farce’

Alan Ayckbourn’s Bedroom Farce seems to announce itself quite succinctly with its title. Yes, it’s a comedy, and yes, the action takes place entirely in three bedrooms. But don’t call it a farce, says Maria Aitken, who directs the production of the play by Huntington Theatre Company that begins performances at the BU Theatre on Friday.

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Bedroom Farce  Program

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Bedroom Farce Curtain Calls

Enjoy a series of brief interviews with Bedroom Farce cast members Patricia Hodges (Delia), Mahira Kakkar (Jan), Malcolm Ingram (Ernest), and Karl Miller (Trevor).

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Alan Ayckbourn in Conversation with Angus MacKechnie at The National Theatre

Watch an interview with Alan Ayckbourn at the National Theatre.

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Maria Aitken recalls starting out on stage in 1971

Maria Aitken remembers her first play on a London stage with Ian McShane and how it shaped her career in The Telegraph.

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It's Complicated: Alan Ayckbourn's Bedroom Farce

As long as human beings have had relationships, they have had a need to define them with the phrase “it’s complicated” — an expression that has taken on new life in the 21st century. The term is now everywhere, from a Facebook status to a Nancy Meyers movie title. But is the modern ubiquity of “it’s complicated” a sign that our relationships have become more messy – or have we just embraced the language to describe what was always there? English playwright Alan Ayckbourn, known as “the Molière of the Middle Class,” has made a decades-long career out of examining the complex conflicts at the heart of relationships, and lays out the highs and lows of married life in his acclaimed early comedyBedroom Farce.

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Creating Extraordinary Worlds for Huntington Audiences

Alexander Dodge is an award -winning international set and costume designer for musicals, plays, opera, and dance. He has designed productions in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and London, as well as 14 productions for the Huntington Theatre Company. We asked Alexander to share his recollections about some of his most memorable designs for the Huntington’s stages.

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Ayckbourn and Bedroom Farce in Context

Playwright and director Alan Ayckbourn’s distinctive perspective as a dramatist combines an ambitious eye for structure, a sly ear for humor, and a desire to challenge himself. Born in 1939, Ayckbourn was the child of a novelist and a violinist. He began his theatrical career as an actor, and was hired by director Stephen Joseph to become a member of his company at the Scarborough Theatre.

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Alan Ayckbourn on the Writing of Bedroom Farce

Early in 1975, I collaborated with Andrew Lloyd Webber on one of the great musical disasters of the decade, the earlier Mark 1 version of Jeeves. Recoiling from the scathing, occasional downright gleeful criticism we justly deserved, I consoled myself by setting about writing my obligatory yearly Scarborough summer play [where Ayckbourn served as artistic director in Scarborough, England]. In the time honored tradition, I announced the title long before a word was written. The play was thrust into the actors’ hands at the first read through, having been finished the night before and unread ‘til then by any of them.

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