The Cavern
RADS stage Jean Anouilh’s upstairs‑downstairs comic drama probing reality, illusion and an author who watches his play unravel.
Who killed the Cook?
The Police Chief would like to know, naturally.
The gentry would prefer not to - on account, you understand, of the scandal.
The servants know, of course, and won't tell.
And the Author, who might be presumed to know also, considers the question supremely unimportant. He has other worries besides the paltry matter of who killed whom.
The Author, in fact, is present every night, watching to see that the Police Chief and the actors don't ruin his play. He has an anxious time of it because:
a) His principal character gets killed before the play even opens. b) He hasn't really managed to write the play. c) The Police Chief keeps trying to rewrite it.
And on top of it all, there's the audience. They have been coming to see his plays for thirty years now - what are they going to think? Nobody but he seems to care about this either. His characters go their own ways, loving, laughing, suffering, dying.
In the end, will he leave it - as all playwrights must - to them?
