READING MODULE

 

Subject: TEATRO INGLÉS S. XIX Y XX

Code: 14227 group: B

NPA: CL46706  Mª JOSEFA GÓMEZ GARCÍA

 

 

Tom Stoppard, If you are Glad I’ll be Frank. Copy from “reprografia” at the university. Received its first production on the BBC Third Programme on 8 February 1966.

 

Dramatis personae

Frank              Young man, he is a bus driver. Hi rashes from the bus to the House of

                       Commons  in a very passionate way, almost frantically.

Gladys             She is a young woman who can not stand her job. She works as

                        Speaking clock. She even thinks of becoming a non, not because

                        she is very devote person but because the peace and quietness of a

.                       monastery.

 

 

Myrtle            She seems to be secretary of the 1st Lord or either the receptionist

Trelawney      in the building.

 

1st Porter        He seems very obliging to his superiors.

Mr. Mortimer He seems to be a secretary in the House of Commons.

Mr Courtenay-Smith       He could be an MP

Sir John        He could be another MP, He seems a detached person.

Lord Coot     He is the 1st Lord of the Post office. He directs the services that belong

                      to that charge, he plays special attention to the telephone services. He is

                      proud of the way they work.

Beryl Bligh   She is the new secretary of the 1st Lord

Operator     She is completely helpless, she looks like one of the machines that they

                     put to answer the phone nowadays in the big companies.

Ivy               She is the work met of Frank, She is always concerned with covering the

                     bus services.

2nd porter    This one has worse temper then the other porter.

 

 

Plot

There are Gladys and Frank. She works giving her voice to a speaking clock, He is a bus driver. She feels trapped on her job and her mind keeps going away in her own thoughts. Frank knows that she is unhappy and tries to liberate her. He keeps going to where she works to talk to her boss. He only has few seconds to reach the 1st Lord while leaving the bus outside, this is not enough time. It is not easy to reach the 1st Lord in an instant way. So he has to come and go several times.

 

Space

It happens on the entrance and the hall of the House of Commons. This gives a hectic atmosphere of people coming in and out all the time.

 

 

 

Time

Lineal time. It starts in the morning and finishes in the afternoon. We have a continuous reference to the time we are at.

 

Literary resources

They speak prose. They use the clerks language. The time is a constant reference. Stoppard introduces lots of onomatopoeic sounds like the Pip pip pip and the tick tock, check chek, chick chock.

The title of the play is a words game referring to the names of the two protagonists; Glad from Gladys and Frank from Frank, resulting with the funny sentence “If you are Glad I’ll be Frank”.

 

Other aspects

●Political and social;  It reflects the franticness of the present society, where we are

                                     always rushing from one place to another.

●Cost of production;    It should not be a too expensive production.

●technical problems;   There should not be mayor problems, although they have to

                                     play special care with the voices in off that are constantly

                                     present.

 

Personal opinion

It a funny little play which it is a mirror of how do we live. The rush has taken over our lives. We have become a kind of automats. We are prisoners of time. I think it is a funny way to represent it.