In A Kankedort: The Play

----- By J. L. S., etc.
-------------for the Grice Club


KANKEDORT, a play written by J. M. Geary for the "Grice Club" -- under his "Billy Bloblather", was first staged tomorrow. The characters are supposed to impersonate different people (or characters). There's the philosopher, the maid, the cook, and they all find their selves (and also themselves) 'in a kankedort'. The play is in three acts. "Each act," the playwright [Geary] explains, takes upon one of the three hypothesis that were given to the play. The epilogue is our own.


ACT I "In a difficult situation"

ACT II "In an akwaurd situation"

ACT III "In an awkward affair

EPILOGUE "In a conundrum."


---- The play opened to raging reviews. "The deliverance of the lines is a enigmatic, to say the least. The words are charged with implicature. On questioned whether he had found inspiration in Beckett's Godot, Geary explained, "Your question offends me". The protagonist, J. L., plays the maid -- compleat with Cockney accent. "It was painful to memorise the words -- some of them were far from optimal. "Served Dinner Is", but with a Cyril accent. At first I thought I could not do it." Patricia Hodges play the Philosopher, complete with mustache. "I am supposed to represent Paul Grice, only he never grew a beard, but the Artistic Director told me that I would look more philosophical if I attached one to my ... face." "The language", Geary explains, "is not really English, it's a conundrum, a kankedort." Asked about the message of the play, he reflects, "Perhaps it doesn't have one. Kankedort is life. Has life a message? Kankedort is the difficult, awkward, affair of your conundrum." "The casting was easy enough, but then I had to think of the Aristotelian unity of Time and Space." "We wanted," the 'maid' JL interpersed, "to carry most of the stuff of Aristotle's Poetics -- which we deem biased." "Exactly. The first act takes place in Scotland. In the Highlands. The Philosopher imagines he is, naturally, elsewhere. The maid doesn't help. She is Italian, and keeps reminding the philosopher (played by a brilliant Patricia Hodges) that she is somewhere else." "The cook," Geary continues, "is played by Jason Kennedy. As a collaborative project, he proposed we actually built a kitchen on stage and we did. Since he's been living in Guatemala City for four years, he naturally wanted to cook Guatemalan cuisine." Jason joins in the converstion, "That's the crux for the second Act, where I open the scene with a monologue comparing the fruits of Scotland with the fruits of Guatemala -- as I try to explain to a local how to turn porridge onto a cool cockail". "Only," JL adds, "the philosoper wouldn't drink it!" -- The play was directed by L. J. Kramer, who also provided the lights. "It's a dark play," Kramer notes, "on the whole". "I tried to find inspiration in the soundtrack -- which is a some sort of concrete music supplied by our producer Roger Bishop Jones. But the rehearsals went fine, and we did not need to cut much of Geary's original dialogue." The play has been published -- it's 15 pages long. "Yet," Kramer concludes, "the play lasts 4:37 hours." "IN A KANKEDORT". Now Playing Thur-Sat. 8:00, The Co-Operative Theatre. Discount for Pensioners.