OMP Winter Plays, By W. S. Gilbert

Directed by Charles Palella Three one-act plays by W. S. Gilbert. Titles include: A Medical Man, The Hooligan, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Off Monroe Players A Medical Man is about Alphonso de Pickleton, a dramatic author, who mailed a proposal of marriage to Belinda sight unseen. In response she sends him a picture of an old woman, by accident. She is embarrassed by her mistake and devised a plan to make his acquaintance and explain the mistake in person in the hopes that he will not reject her. Not knowing she is his betrothed, he falls madly in love with her and develops his own plot to win her hand. He passes himself off as a medical man, but when Jones, a stage manager, barges in to discuss Pickleton’s newest play, the young author must use all his theatrical acumen to win the young lady’s hand. The Hooligan is a character study. We meet Nat Solly who is a convict on Death Row. In the process of waiting for a pardon to come at the last minute we hear his story and how he came to murder his former girlfriend. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern uses characters from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. In this variation, the Queen has sent for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in the hopes that they might cheer up a melancholy Hamlet. They are greeted by Ophelia, whom Rosencrantz has long loved, but is betrothed to Hamlet. The three friends contrive a plot to have Hamlet produce and star in a play written by the king; a play so bad that the penalty for performing it is death.