Trying It On
Cast: 1m 1f (plus filmed segments)
Staging: Single interior (a study)
Amateur rights performance fee: £85 per performance (plus VAT where applicable)
17 Oct 2018
Trying It On
Ebook
£8.99£7.19
It's 1968. David is twenty. It is the height of the worldwide student revolt. The Vietnam war rages. Enoch Powell delivers his 'Rivers of Blood' speech. Martin Luther King is assassinated. These events will define David's politics and give focus to his writing.
It's fifty years on. The seventy-year-old is confronted by the twenty-year old. Do they share the same beliefs? If not, is it the world that's changed, or him?
David Edgar's Trying It On is an autobiographical monologue, written to be performed by its author.
It was first presented by Warwick Arts Centre and China Plate, touring the UK in 2018, including performances at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, the Midlands Arts Centre and at the Royal Court Theatre, London – as well as at the Royal Shakespeare Company, alongside the RSC's revival of Edgar's landmark play Maydays.
Note for Performers: Trying It On is ostensibly a monologue play intended to be performed by the author, but also includes an essential, scripted role for an additional, female performer, as well as incorporating filmed segments containing dialogue.
Trying It On is also available in the volume Maydays & Trying It On: two plays.
'Masterful in its rug-pulling structure, what has begun as a eulogy to the good old days and the achievements of Edgar's life becomes an elegant statement that all of this means nothing unless you can and are willing to pass on responsibility with a sense of generational harmony’
Independent'Formally inventive… thought-provoking, self-aware and pin-sharp, Edgar delivers a personal and political play that's more radical than his 20-year-old firebrand self could ever imagine'
Fest Magazine'Entertaining... a wry, often magnificently withering analysis of [Edgar's] younger years... a very good piece of docu-theatre'
Time Out'A thoughtful, self-questioning play of ceaseless invention'
The Skinny'Optimistically refreshing... heartful, hopeful and humorous'
The Reviews Hub'Trying It On challenges us all to question our beliefs: how they originate, how they are influenced by external factors, and whether age really does mellow us'
WhatsOnStage'Energised with humour and humility'
The Stage'Witty, but never cynical… as charming as it is challenging'
The Times'A triumph of confessional courage – and relentless optimism'
GuardianCast: 1m 1f (plus filmed segments)
Staging:Single interior (a study)
Amateur rights performance fee: £85 per performance (plus VAT where applicable)
17 Oct 2018
