Haunted

Description

Haunted: quaint, sherry-tippling English matrimonial misery. Mr. Berry is a randy old codger with itchy feet and a tendency to wax nostalgic. Mrs. Berry, a long-suffering harridan, toils thanklessly in a doll factory. Enter Hazel, a pert waif with immaculate ingenue credentials (impoverished, do-gooder, asexual). She's heard that Mrs. Berry is selling vintage clothes. Mr. Berry, beguiled, gives her a fancy sweater of his wife's - the first of many surreptitious presents. Soon, the mismatched couple is hanging out on the DL, disastrously depleting Mrs. B's wardrobe. Marriage and the shattering betrayals that can sometimes unexpectedly strengthen them are the theme of Haunted, award winning Irish writer Edna O'Brien's play.

In the 1960s O'Brien caused a sensation in Ireland when her debut novel, The Country Girls, dared to present a full and frank depiction of the everyday trials and tribulations of young Irish women. For her pains she was rewarded with a book burning led by her local parish priest, with enthusiastic help from the rural community she grew up in, which rejected her soundly. Since her debut novel Edna O'Brien has written over twenty works of fiction along with a biography of James Joyce and Lord Byron. She is the recipient of many awards including the Irish PEN Lifetime Achievement Award, the American National Art's Gold Medal and the Ulysses Medal. Born and raised in the west of Ireland she has lived in London for many years.