The Lesson & Home

The Lesson by Eugene Ionesco

This entertaining and unusual play was written by Ionesco, a leading exponent of the 'theatre of the absurd'.  It explores shifts in power and the impossibility of communication between a young girl pupil and an aging male professor.  The action takes the form of a lesson, in which the pupil is tested and instructed to prepare her for an examination, but in this lesson nothing is quite as simple as it seems.

Home by David Storey

Two retired gentlemen chat and pass the long day on the terrace of a house in the country.  In due course they are joined by two outspoken elderly ladies and Alfred, a taciturn young man.  They bicker, reminisce and gossip, filling the hours between mealtimes.  On the surface little happens, but the surface cracks here and there, revealing failures and disappointments beneath the brave and funny exterior.