Kings of New York

Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre company has returned to the UK triumphant after a five-week off-Broadway residency in New York which saw them chosen as a critics’ pick in The New York Times and highly praised by The Wall Street Journal.
The SJT company took two shows, a revival of Alan Ayckbourn’s 1974 Confusions and his 2015 world premiere, Hero’s Welcome, to the annual Brits Off Broadway festival at New York’s 59E59 Theater - both shows had been part of last year’s summer season at the Scarborough Theatre, which marked the 60th anniversary of the Stephen Joseph Theatre - the New York trip, during which they could be seen at 59E59 between 27 May and 3 July, brought those celebrations to a close.

The two shows broke their box office targets, and were highly praised by the New York media.
New York Times critic Ben Brantley highlighted both plays in his ‘NYT Critics’ Pick’ feature, saying of Hero’s Welcome: “So deft is Mr Ayckbourn’s dramatic shorthand that he can summon complete, quirkily detailed back stories for not one but three intersecting couples in a single, standard-length play. He manages to do so while engineering an elaborate plot, as full of twists and secrets as anything by Ibsen, in which everybody lies, including the British government.”
Of Confusions, he wrote: “These five one-acters also allow you to see clearly the basic building blocks from which Mr Ayckbourn constructs his more complex works. And even the silliest of them is steeped in the critical yet compassionate sensibility - call it sentimental cynicism - that is uniquely their creator’s.”
Meanwhile The Wall Street Journal’s Terry Teachout praised the ‘poignant drama’ of Hero’s Welcome, and the humour of Confusions, saying: “In recent seasons 59E59 Theater’s Brits Off Broadway summer festival has been doing theater-loving New Yorkers a signal service by importing Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre, which Mr Ayckbourn ran for 37 years, to perform his stagings of his own plays.”

He added: “This year’s fare includes the US premiere of Hero’s Welcome, his 79th play, and the New York premiere of Confusions, a 1974 mixed bill of interconnected one-act plays. Both are musts: Confusions is funnier than just about anything else to be seen on a New York stage right now, while Hero’s Welcome is one of the most poignant dramas that Mr Ayckbourn has given us.
“Has there ever been a playwright who directed his own works more skillfully and imaginatively? I doubt it.”
Hero’s Welcome and Confusions were performed in New York by the original Scarborough company: Stephen Billington, Elizabeth Boag, Russell Dixon, and Richard Stacey, plus, replacing original cast members Terenia Edwards and Emma Manton, who were unavailable for the New York tour, Evelyn Hoskins and Charlotte Harwood.
Alan Ayckbourn’s long association with the Stephen Joseph Theatre continues this summer. His new show, The Karaoke Theatre Company, previews in the Round from 8 July and plays in rep until 7 October, while his revival of the 1987 Evening Standard Best Comedy Award-winning Henceforward… can be see in the Round in rep from 8 September to 8 October.
Meanwhile, his brand new play Consuming Passions can be seen as single acts or together at lunchtimes and in the evenings in the theatre’s Bistro and McCarthy Theatre on various dates from 5 August to 8 October. For further information and dates, please visit www.sjt.uk.com