Arrivals & Departures: In Brief
Arrivals & Departures
Play Number: 77World Premiere: 6 August 2013
Venue: Theatre in the Round at the Library Theatre, Scarborough
Premiere Staging: In-the-round
Published: Samuel French, Faber
Other Media: No
Cast: 7m / 4f plus 2 f children
Run Time: 2hr 10m
Synopsis: Two strangers - a traffic warden and a soldier - brought together during a covert security mission, relive memories of their lives. Each act concentrates on one of the two protagonists within the same timeframe but from the perspective of what they are thinking.
- Arrivals & Departures is Alan Ayckbourn's 77th play.
- The world premiere - directed by Alan Ayckbourn - was held at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, on 6 August 2013.
- The New York premiere - directed by Alan Ayckbourn - was held at the 59E59 Theaters, New York, on 29 May as part of the Brits Off Broadway festival.
- Alan Ayckbourn describes Arrivals & Departures as a memory play, in which we see events in flashbacks from the memories of the characters Barry and Ez.
- Due to the nature of the play, it is deliberately written so that the audience know far more about the two characters Ez and Barry and their backgrounds, than they ever discover about each other - despite the play being centred on the pair.
- It is a play in which the playwright again experiments with the use of time within a play. Act I opens with the arrival of Ez and, at the end of the act, the play appears to have reached a natural conclusion. But as Act II begins, we return to the introduction of Barry and gain his perspective of events and his life. The second act also extends beyond the original 'climax' and what appeared to be a relatively happy ending instead becomes a tragic conclusion.
- It is one of the few Alan Ayckbourn plays to feature a character identifiably from Yorkshire (the part of England where Alan Ayckbourn lives), in this case Barry is from Harrogate. Other plays which specifically reference the north of England, particularly Yorkshire, are Haunting Julia and Time Of My Life.
- It is one of the few Ayckbourn plays to be specifically set in London. Other London-set plays include Virtual Reality, GamePlan, FlatSpin, RolePlay, Sugar Daddies and Private Fears In Public Places.
- The memories experienced by Barry and Ez reach back up to thirty years previously, making this one of the longest periods of time portrayed in an Ayckbourn play; the longest being the sixty years portrayed in A Brief History Of Women.
- Arrivals & Departures is one of a number of Alan Ayckbourn plays to have been directed in New York by the playwright himself. The other plays are Bedroom Farce (co-directed with Peter Hall), A Brief History of Women, By Jeeves, Confusions, Hero's Welcome, Intimate Exchanges, My Wonderful Day, Neighbourhood Watch, Private Fears In Public Places and Time Of My Life.
- It is only the second Ayckbourn play to feature military characters after My Sister Sadie. Although other plays, such as Private Fears In Public Places, features characters who have military backgrounds, this is only the second time military characters on active duty have been portrayed in an Ayckbourn play.
- This is only the third Ayckbourn play where a character dies on stage; the other plays being The Revengers' Comedies and A Small Family Business.
- Arrivals & Departures was intended to be the fourth Ayckbourn play to be adapted for film by the French auteur Alain Resnais. He was adapting the screenplay up to the days before he died in 2014. The plays adapted by Resnais previously were Intimate Exchanges, Private Fear in Public Places and Life of Riley.
- Although published as aa play text by Samuel French, Arrivals & Departures was also published in the collection Alan Ayckbourn: Plays 6 (Faber).