Synopsis

The Lively Lad

The Lively Lad $15

Quincy Long

Published by Dramatists Play Service

6 Male 3 Female

Jonathan Van Huffle, a wealthy but weak-willed widower, has promised his immensely spoiled daughter, Little Eva, a eunuch for her birthday

All the other girls have one. It's an absolute requirement in her society, where the daughters of the wealthy are introduced to the joys and perils of sophistication by their personal eunuchs

The trouble is, Jonathan has also fallen in love with the scrumptious but scrupulous Miss McCracken, a progressive waitress at a tea shop who is adamantly opposed to the castration and sale of human beings

How can Jonathan reconcile the powerful desires of his daughter and his beloved? With the help and hindrance of a pair of nutty household servants, Little Eva goes on to triumph at the ball, though not in the way she or anyone else expects in this faux-Victorian comedy with songs

REVIEWS

"Part surreal black comedy, part cautionary moral fable immerses viewers in a strikingly fresh alternative reality, playing fast and loose with conventional theatrical expectations while consistently obeying its own loopy internal logic. Long's play posits a quasi-Victorian-era secret society in which unlucky males are gelded to become companions for upper-class debutantes, à la eunuchs in an Arabian Nights harem. This blunt metaphor for human cruelty proves wickedly hilarious in an unlikely but spectacularly effective stylistic marriage between formal comedy of manners and savage modern parody (think Oscar Wilde by way of Joe Orton)" ~ L.A. Times

Browse Library

About Stageplays

Stageplays offers you the largest collection of Plays & Musicals in the world.

Based in the UK and the USA, we’ve been serving the online theatre community since the last century. We’re primarily a family-run business and several of us also work in professional theatre.

But we’re all passionate about theatre and we all work hard to share that passion with you and the world’s online community.

Subscribe to our theatre newsletter

We'll email you regular details of new plays and half-price special offers on a broad range of theatre titles.

Shipping

We can deliver any play in print to any country in the world - and we ship from both the US and the UK.

© 2010 - 2024 Stageplays, Inc.