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Reviews of The Voysey Inheritance
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ECCO! Public
Relations, etc. 1327 No. CONTACT: Diana
Hale 323-876-0227phone/fax E-Mail
dianahale@earthlink.net FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Bernadette
Hale 323-876-8980 “THE VOISEY INHERITANCE” -BY HARLEY GRANVILLE-BARKER A PLAY ABOUT GREED AND A FAMILY IN CRISIS ADAPTED
BY DAVID MAMET - OPENS THEATRE 40’S 2009-2010 SEASON “We have
no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth
without producing it.” G.B.SHAW THEATRE 40 will open its 2009-2010 Season with the Los Angeles Premiere of DAVID
MAMET’S streamlined adaptation of Harvey Granville-Barker’s 100-year-old
play THE VOISEY INHERITANCE. This is a dark play that denounces the
greed that it feels is bred into us all.
It is a portrait of a family in crisis. The Voyseys have been
systematically defrauding the clients of the family financial firm for two generations
but as proud members of the British upper classes, they are not about to let
the discovery of their ruthless business practices and possible ruin of
innocent clients disturb their extravagant lives. THE
VOISEY INHERITANCE opens on
June 24th at Theatre 40’s newly refurbished Reuben Cordova theatre on the
Beverly Hills High School Campus. Old Voysey is on top of the world, reigning
with Victorian splendor over his large and spoiled family, but the son he has
chosen to take over the family investment firm is in a state of panic. There is nothing of value left on deposit,
just a set of cooked books representing years of possible fraud, a
closed-circuit Ponzi scheme that will crash bringing ruin to clients ranging
from the wealthy to widows and orphans. “Coolly explaining to his perturbed son the
practice of borrowing from one client’s account to pay dividends due to
another, Voisey père sighs ‘Oh, why is it so hard for a man to see clearly
beyond the letter of the law!’ As any
number of recent scandals in the business world remind us, the freedom given to
businessmen with good connections and respectable facades to pursue their
ruthless ends undisturbed by moral qualms, to say nothing of legal
consequences, is a story that remains as fresh as tomorrow’s stock options.” HARVEY GRANVILLE-BARKER is one of the most unfamiliar British
playwrights of the early 20th century. His reputation as a contemporary playwright
of the period has been overshadowed by the fame of George Bernard Shaw, Oscar
Wilde and J.M. Barrie. Granville-Barker
has recently come to the forefront through productions in DAVID MAMET is widely known and respected
for his work not only as a Director but also as a Playwright and an
Author. His works are known for their
clever terse, sometimes vulgar dialogue and arcane stylized phrasing, as well as
for his exploration of masculinity. He
received Tony Award nominations for Glengarry Glen Ross (for which he won the Pulitzer Prize) and Speed-the-Plow. Other plays
include Oleanna, Sexual Perversity in
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