The Upstairs Room

Really, we don't have to keep worrying about the time, Gordon. Let's just sit here together. Okay? For a little while.

London is sinking, there's constant rain, and everyone is trying to escape. Gordon, an American writer, finds himself holed up in the attic room of a half-way house, awaiting forged papers and safe passage back to the States. He becomes trapped with Stella, a mysterious and seductive woman, and a teenage girl called Iris who, between them, take Gordon on an emotional journey through his past and into the present, forcing him to face the painful truth as to why he is there.

David K. O'Hara's The Upstairs Room is a modern take on Sartre's play Huis Clos in which a man and two women find themselves confined together in a drawing room for eternity.

First produced at the King's Head Theatre from 13 November to 8 December 2012 by Giddy Notion, The Upstairs Room is a compelling and well-written play.

Autorentext

David K. O'Hara is a British-American writer, based in Oxford. Plays produced include Book Ends (Summer Hall, 2011 Edinburgh Fringe), Finland: A Sketch (Jericho Tavern, Oxford), For All We Know: A Sketch (The Old Red Lion, RedFest, London), Now Until the Hour (Jacqueline du Pré Music Building, Oxford/Forthcoming at the Cheltenham Everyman Studio), and The Upstairs Room (Burton Taylor Studio, Oxford). He has a PhD in English Literature and Creative Writing from Bath Spa University and his non-fiction has been featured in various publications from The Believer to Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction. He is currently working on a stage adaptation of Ingmar Bergman's The Touch, in consultation with the Bergman Foundation and other projects include a play about one of Freud's test-cases as well as a one-act entitled Self Portrait with Imaginary Brother.