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Description
After thirty-two years, a marriage shatters into pieces. Acclaimed journalist Gus leaves Honor, a poet, wife and mother, for Claudia, a bright young journalist not much older than his and Honor's twenty-four-year-old daughter, Sophie. In the wake of new passion stands Honor, who must come to grips with the career she has willingly sacrificed for her husband and child, the evolution of a marriage, her abandonment and eventual resurrection. Gus must face the consequences of betraying his own long-held principles about duty and justice, of leaving a secure love for the raptures of passion. Claudia confronts the darkness of her own impulses and learns that to love truly and wisely is to understand moral responsibility. In a series of intense confrontations, the wife, husband, lover and daughter negotiate the forces of passion, lust, history, responsibility and honour. This story, Greek in its examination of the fundamental human experience, is also utterly contemporary. A familiar story is told in a distinctly original way, using theatrical language that is darkly comic, highly poetic and uncompromisingly savage.
About the Author
Joanna Murray-Smith’s many plays have been performed around the world. They include THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES, which ran in the West End, BOMBSHELLS, NINETY (all produced at Melbourne Theatre Company), RAPTURE, NIGHTFALL, REDEMPTION, LOVE CHILD, ATLANTA (all at the Playbox Theatre Company), FLAME, and RIDGE'S LOVERS. HONOUR was produced on the West End in 2006 starring Diana Rigg and was previously directed at the Royal National Theatre in London by Roger Michell to rave reviews. Previously HONOUR had a public reading in New York in 1996 with Meryl Streep and Sam Waterston and went on to have a Broadway production in 1998. The play has had productions in Brazil, Portugal, Malaysia, New Zealand, San Francisco, Canada, and Tokyo. Many of Joanna's plays have been adapted for radio, including Australian, BBC, American and Swedish radio. Her plays have been nominated for many awards and HONOUR won the Victorian Premier's Literary Award in 1996. Joanna's first opera (libretto), LOVE IN THE AGE OF THERAPY, was produced by Opera Australia at the Melbourne International Festival (composed by Paul Grabowsky) in October 2002 and was seen at the Sydney Opera House in early 2003 as part of the Opera Australia season and the Sydney Festival. Joanna is the author of three published novels, “Sunnyside” (Penguin 2005), “Truce” (Penguin 1994), and “Judgment Rock” (Penguin, 2002), which has been sold to Germany. Her play BOMBSHELLS was nominated for the Outstanding Touring Production Award at the twenty-sixth Annual DORA Mavor Moore Awards in Toronto, Canada.
Praise For…
"HONOUR makes for surprisingly interesting viewing. Tight, crackling dialogue (usually played out in punchy verbal duels) captures characters unable to deal with emotions…Murray-Smith effectively places her characters in situations that strip away pretense." —Variety. "…the play's virtues are strong: a distinctive theatrical voice, passionate concerns…HONOUR might just capture a few honors of its own." —Time Out NY.