Tryst will enter two plays in the 2012 SCDA one-act play festival – A Night in the Ukraine by Dick Vosburgh and Frank Lazarus and Some Kind of Love Story by Arthur Miller.

A Night in the Ukraine is the Marx Brothers’ movie the brothers never made! Directed by Jim Allan, it’s set in the style of a classic 1930s Hollywood black and white film and sweeps us away to Russia for a madcap comedy featuring all the usual zany Marx Brothers characters. The action takes place in the stately mansion of Madame Pavlenko, a wealthy Ukrainian widow whose world is turned upside down when the lawyer Serge B Samovar, the Groucho Marx character, arrives looking for money he is owed. Chaos, jokes and song ensue. The cast is Jim Allan, Alan Clark, Carol Clark, Joanne Davidson, Craig Murray, Frank Murray, Daniela Shankland and Brian Tripney.

The spectre of Marilyn Monroe looms large over Some Kind of Love Story, an erotically-charged game of cat and mouse directed by Alan Clark. In the play, Angela (Rhona Law), a schizophrenic prostitute who has multiple personality disorder, is visited by Tom O’Toole (Brian Paterson), a private detective and a former lover who is convinced that she is withholding information about a murder case which has resulted in a miscarriage of justice. Said to have been inspired by Miller’s disastrous marriage to Monroe, it’s set in Angela’s bedroom and is a melodrama, a love story and a detective story all rolled into one. The play has strong language and scenes of a sexual nature and is unsuitable for children.

The festival runs in Bowhouse Community Centre on February 26 and 27.