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Sympathy Pains
"Breadwinner wives with confused husbands - head for Sympathy Pains at Park Theatre. Sharp and funny"
Libby Purves (The Times)
Snappy dialogue throughout.......A believable middle-aged couple at the end of their tethers.
The Stage
“I’m so glad I came - I was so impressed by your writing and your acting”
Barry Humphries
A comedy drama about a pregnant man.
Guy is a failure - out-earned big time by his wife, Chris. The marriage is under pressure: she feels knackered, he feels purse-whipped. Faced with one rejection too many, Guy reaches his lowest ebb - and that’s when the miracle happens. He is with child! He is special, chosen, Messianic. The conviction takes hold and the couple have to renegotiate their marriage to find a way of helping him stay afloat without the rubber ring that is his delusion. Having explored a multitude of options, they revert to a startlingly old-fashioned solution and the play closes with some uncomfortable questions about how we navigate our way through changing roles between men and women today.
This is a comedy about a seismic social shift in the power struggle between the sexes. Female breadwinning is a phenomenon at all income levels and is transforming every aspect of our lives.
Ros Adler won a Times Critics’ Choice Award 2012 for her play Jubilate!