# Identify this one-act play

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-this-one-act-play/278254>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [December 5, 2004, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-this-one-act-play/278254 "2004-12-05T20:02:47Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\
**Post date:** [December 5, 2004, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-this-one-act-play/278254/1 "2004-12-05T20:02:47Z")

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This is an obscure one. I saw it many years ago when I was in high school, so it was available in the late 60s.

The scene was a kitchen. The plot involved a husband and wife suddenly being surrounded by the aspects of a spy thriller – gunshots, mysterious phone calls, etc.

About halfway through, and man walks into the kitchen and sits, putting his feet up on the kitchen table. He reads a newspaper.

Neither the husband and wife pay the slightest attention to him. He continues to read until there’s a gunshot or some other thrilling moment.

Then, the man puts away his newspaper and says words to the effect, "That’s fine. But at the next rehearsal, I want . . . " The joke being that he is the director of a play watching the runthrough.

Any ideas?

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**Author:** ![hawthorne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@hawthorne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hawthorne)\
**Post date:** [December 6, 2004, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-this-one-act-play/278254/2 "2004-12-06T12:06:20Z")

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My memory is muddled and neither quite fit, but how about either Stoppard’s _The Real Inspector Hound_ (theatre critics get involved in standard murder mystery) or his _After Magritte_ (surreal tableau explained as everyday dance rehearsal, the unravels)?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\
**Post date:** [December 6, 2004, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-this-one-act-play/278254/3 "2004-12-06T13:22:37Z")

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Not Stoppard – I’ve read them both. And the play I’m thinking of was performed in a high school stage a few years before either of the Stoppards were written.

Thanks, though.