The Hen-Party is an American comedy after Beautiful Bodies, the play of a contemporary American writer Laura Shaine Cunningham. L. S. Cunningham is a well-known American novelist, playwright and journalist, whose writings include novels, memoirs, plays and essays. She is the author of eight books, and her works are widely translated into different languages. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in a number of prestigious publications, such as “The New Yorker“ and “The New York Times“. L. S. Cunningham has been honoured with numerous literary and theatrical awards. Beautiful Bodies, which is considered one of her most popular plays, has been staged in nearly fifteen countries: the USA, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Finland, Romania, Russia, the Netherlands, Bulgaria and Estonia. This play is being produced in Lithuania for the first time.
The Hen-Party is a realistic story about six best friends who gather together on a cold winter night to celebrate the mysterious pregnancy of Claire, a free-spirited unmarried musician. The six different women bring their gifts for the baby – their life stories and experiences. Jessie, the hostess of the party, is an independent woman who divorced her husband because he used to belch and never excused himself; Nina has just had an unusual sex affair with a Zen Buddhist; Lisbeth, an anorexic model, still feels the presence of her vanished lover; Sue, an actress, is yet another time fleeing her unfaithful husband, trying to convince herself that this time is final; Martha, a pragmatic real estate agent, is hiding the truth about her fiancé. What do the girls talk about when they are alone? They eat, drink and engage in a witty dialogue until, gradually, their masks fall, revealing a fragile and vulnerable nerve of a contemporary woman. Lively and colourful characters, who are both authentic and easily recognizable, make the true worth of the play, while the women‘s problems seem to be very humane, familiar and understandable. The action of the play is undivided and gripping, and its dialogues are lively and natural. The six best friends gracefully and playfully disclose their feelings, sores and joys, reveal their most important values. It is beyond any doubt that their self-perception in modern society and search for human happiness, coloured by humour and irony, are relevant to our audiences. The Hen- Party is a production about women's world - their life choices, love and friendship, and, of course, about a man, who is seen from a woman‘s perspective. It is the play about us, intelligent or stupid, happy or frustrated, successful or unfulfilled ones - all of us, living in this cold age of modern technology and willing to find an oasis for our souls.
The director of the play is Alexandras Rubinovas, stage design created by Fausta Makcinskaite.
Premiere in February 2009
