Series: Oberon Modern Plays

A mysterious stranger appears in a Moscow park. Soon, he and his retinue have astonished the locals with the magic show to end all magic shows. But why are they really here, and what has it got to do with the beautiful Margarita, or her lover, the Master, a silenced writer? A carnival for the senses and a diabolical extravaganza,...

I’m not tame 'cause I want to be with you Basti and Rdeca are pulling all-nighters. When their paths cross, the sparks fly, and an impossible bond spirals dangerously out of control. A viciously funny and unforgettable play about first love, teenage lust, and nature vs nurture. First Love is the Revolution by Rita Kalnejais is an audacious new play...

A Disappearing Number takes as its starting point the story of one of the most mysterious and romantic mathematical collaborations of all time. Simultaneously a narrative and an enquiry, the production crosses three continents and several histories, to weave a provocative theatrical pattern about our relentless compulsion to understand. A man mourns the loss of his lover, a mathematician mourns...

Norma Jeane Baker of Troy is a partly spoken, partly sung performance piece by poet, essayist, and scholar Anne Carson. It is an exploration of the lives and myths of Marilyn Monroe and Helen of Troy—iconic beauties who lived millennia apart. A thrilling and thoughtful meditation on the destabilising and destructive power of beauty, it had its world premiere at...

From the last lonely wilderness, the last dark corner of these overlit times, in the camouflage of the common man, Thom Pain takes the stage, fumbling with his heart, squinting into the light. With terrible timing and impeccable regret, over-educated in the wrong ways, and wounded in the right ones, he appears. Teeth bared, as he picks a piece of...

At the turn of the 20th Century, the great cruise liner Virginia shuttles back and forth across the Atlantic Ocean, transporting passengers from old Europe to the New World. When an abandoned baby is found on board, the sailors christen him Novecento – 1900. The child is destined to a strange fate. Novecento will never leave the ship as long...

1939: fascism spreads across Europe, Franco marches on Barcelona and two German chemists discover the processes of atomic fission. In Berkeley, California, theoretical physicists recognise the horrendous potential of this new science: a weapon that draws its power from the very building blocks of the universe. Struggling to cast off his radical past and thrust into a position of power...

This winter, JM Barrie's much-loved tale takes flight. Following the acclaimed Jane Eyre, director Sally Cookson brings her wondrously inventive Peter Pan to the NT after a sell-out run at Bristol Old Vic. Exploring the possibilities and pain of growing up, it’s a riot of magic, mischief, music and make-believe.

This is the saddest story I have ever heard. So begins Julian Mitchell’s stage adaptation of Ford Madox Ford’s classic novel, The Good Soldier, a tale of deceit, delusion, and disintegrating marriage in pre-war Britain. Two seemingly upstanding couples find their friendships enveloped by scandal and tragedy, as the façade of wealth and privilege falls away and details of their...

“We need the theatre, couldn’t, couldn’t do without it. Could we?” A successful actress visits her brother’s isolated estate far from the city, throwing the frustrated residents' unfulfilled ambitions into sharp relief. As her son attempts to impress with a self-penned play, putting much more than his pride at stake, others dream of fame, love and the ability to change...

Between light and shadow, science and superstition, fear and knowledge is a dimension of imagination. An area we call The Twilight Zone. Adapted by Anne Washburn (Mr Burns) and directed by Olivier Award-winner Richard Jones, this world premiere production of the acclaimed CBS Television Series The Twilight Zone lands on stage for the first time in its history. Or its...

In Brixton, Nora and Dora Chance – twin chorus girls born and bred south of the river – are celebrating their 75th birthday. Over the river in Chelsea, their father and greatest actor of his generation, Melchior Hazard, turns 100 on the same day. As does his twin brother Peregrine. If, in fact, he’s still alive. And if, in truth,...

Picture yourself as a bartender, sipping top-shelf whiskey and watching your customers descend into nightly oblivion. Your heart is broken by the world around you and, leaving the whisky aside, you hatch a devious, unthinkable plan of escape… Award-winning FellSwoop Theatre present Ablutions: a dark, modern drama, adapted from the novel by Man Booker shortlisted author, Patrick deWitt. A grimly...

When reclusive crime writer Daniel Quinn receives a mysterious call seeking a private detective in the middle of the night, he quickly and unwittingly becomes the protagonist in a thriller of his own. As the familiar territory of the noir detective genre gives way to something altogether more disturbing, Quinn becomes consumed by his mission, and begins to lose his...

In Collective Rage, the lives of five very different New York women named Betty collide at the intersection of anger, sex, and “theat-ah.” As they meet, fall in love, rehearse, revel, and rage, they realise that they’ve been stuck reading the same scripts for far too long. They all come from different backgrounds and are bored or angry about different...

“People of the internet, people of the world, you wanna see your Environment Minister SOLVE some shit, this is the soundtrack…” What happens when the unstoppable force of climate change meets the immovable object of Australian politics? Environment Minister Gwen Malkin's plan to stop climate change is rudely interrupted when a group of eco-terrorists storm Australia's Parliament House during a...

In the southern Pacific Ocean on the remote island of Pitcairn, the infamous mutineers of The Bounty, led by Fletcher Christian (or should it be Titreano?), begin to establish a new society alongside their Tahitian followers. Tensions quickly swell as the British settlers refuse to relinquish the vices of their past. Social, racial, and sexual schisms render the once paradisiac...

I’ve started to recognise complete strangers… An ad sales team leader on a joyride to self-destruction. A Romanian bookshop employee who wants to try something new. An entertainment journalist who wants out. A restaurant manager who mourns a suicide. An English movie star who seeks credibility by slumming it in theatre. A Japanese florist who feels it’s time to take...

In 2018, island-monkeys Becca and Louise got invited to Valletta, the European Capital of Culture in Malta. They thought they were going to drink rum with Brits abroad, celebrating their final year as Europeans, and make a play. Instead, they found corruption, hypocrisy, and murder in the fight to be European. Blending investigative journalism with live art, Sh!t Theatre Drink...

A young man lives alone with his mother and his beloved dog in a house in a small village overlooking the fjord. The dog has run off and gone missing. This has never happened before... In The Dead Dogs, lives are shockingly disrupted by an event that changes the direction of their future. Fosse’s drama explores life lived in unexpected...

A girl on the verge of adulthood is sitting on a sofa. She is unhappy: she resents her mother and older sister and longs for her absent father, a sailor. What is she going to do with her life? She considers becoming a painter... A woman approaching middle age is painting a self-portrait. She is watching her younger self: the...

As a punishment, failed wizard Rincewind is given the task of guiding and safeguarding the Disc’s first tourist, Twoflower (with his magical luggage on legs). As they travel the city and beyond, they meet the world’s oldest hero, Cohen the Barbarian. With him, and with Bethan (a qualified sacrificial victim), they encounter druids, trolls, adventurers, a hairdresser and a power-crazed...

If you could lie without flinching, corrupt without caring and succeed at all costs – how far could you go… how much could you make? From the early promise of the '70s through to the unrelenting capitalism of the '80s and '90s, follow George on a journey from innocence to savage greed and knotted honesty, as he invents three golden...

Two hapless understudies occupy their time backstage, trying to understand art, life, theatre and their precarious existence within it. Described as “delectable” by The New York Times and “gleefully absurd” by Time Out New York, this hilariously witty comedy ponders Beckett, showbiz and just what on earth it’s all about. Turns out, the only people who truly understand Beckett’s Waiting...

John Mortimer's autobiographical play is the affectionate portrait of a son's relationship with his father. Growing up in the shadow of the brilliant barrister, who adored his garden and hated visitors, and whose blindness was never mentioned, the son continually yearns for his father's love and respect. A Voyage Round My Father opened in June 2006 at the Donmar Theatre,...

The Firework Maker's Daughter tells the story of Lila, who dreams of becoming a firework-maker just like her father. To achieve her dream, she embarks on a perilous journey alone, aiming to reach the terrifying Fire-Fiend. Lila's adventure takes her through jungles teeming with crocodiles, snakes, monkeys, and pirates, and requires her to climb a scalding volcano. Upon confronting the...

A new life beckons for Lucy Snowe. Leaving England and her past behind, she arrives in the French town of Villette, equipped only with a sharp tongue, a lively imagination, and an independent spirit. She soon finds work as a teacher, coping with a fierce headmistress and a classroom of unruly, coquettish schoolgirls. But Villette has even greater challenges in...

Duncan Macmillan's stunning and resonant adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s Rosmersholm. This revival of a masterpiece charts love, politics, past and future, with plenty of twists thrown in for good measure. Rosmersholm is positioned against the backdrop of a looming election, an atmosphere of uncertainty and a bloodthirsty press. In the grand house of an influential dynasty, John Rosmer holds the...

In 1997, a BAFTA award-winning British film about six out-of-work Sheffield steelworkers with nothing to lose took the world by storm. And now they’re back, live on stage. Only for them, it really has to be The Full Monty. Simon Beaufoy, the Oscar-winning writer of the film, has now gone back to Sheffield where it all started to rediscover the...