Théâtre National de Bretagne
Direction Arthur Nauzyciel
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Répertoire
The year is 1977; the setting a suburb near London. Abigail, 15, is holding her first teenage party.
At the same time her mother, Susan, attends a drinks party at the nearby home of Beverly and Laurence Moss. The atmosphere at Abigail’s Party can be felt from the Moss home, where another couple, Angela and Tony, are also over for drinks, but neither Abigail nor her party are ever seen.
Within this simple framework Mike Leigh creates a play where all of the obsessions, prejudices, fears and disillusions of his middle class characters are ruthlessly exposed. As drinks are consumed in larger quantity and the alcohol takes effect, the social codes and conventions of a bemused middle class, incapable of coping with change, gradually dissolve. The subtly crafted play, which is both hilarious and savage, paints a scathing picture of a conventional petty bourgeois society imprisoned in the pretences of its small-minded aspirations.
Abigail ’s Party is a play for stage and television by the British writer and filmmaker Mike Leigh. It is a dark comedy, a satire on the aspirations and tastes of the new British middle class that emerged in the 1970s. The play was first staged in 1977 at the Hampstead Theatre and later, the same year, recorded and broadcast by the BBC.