# A Play Without Words, or, what just happened?

**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-play-without-words-or-what-just-happened/303361
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [May 11, 2005, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-play-without-words-or-what-just-happened/303361 "2005-05-11T06:06:30Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![Campion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@Campion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Campion)
#### Post date: [May 11, 2005, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-play-without-words-or-what-just-happened/303361/1 "2005-05-11T06:06:30Z")

</div>

I’m somewhat befuddled. Tonight I saw Matthew Bourne’s _A Play Without Words_, which is supposedly based on a 1963 movie [_The Servant_](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057490/). I have never seen the movie, and so am a bit lost as to the plot of the play.

The play is done entirely in dance, with two or three people playing each character all at the same time (so, for example, you could have three Anthonys dancing with three Glendas all at once). I’m not precisely sure what happened in the play, but it appears to have one of two morals:

1. Don’t have sex. Bad things happen when you have sex.

**or**

1. Don’t have servants. Bad things happen when you have servants.

Has anyone else seen this play or seen the movie? Can you shed any light on what, exactly, the play was about?