Taking Steps Author:Alan Ayckbourn Taking Steps is a farce for four men and four women. Roland, a hard-drinking tycoon, is considering buying an old Victorian house, once a brothel. His solicitor and the vendor, a builder, arrive to complete the deal. Also in the house are his wife, a frustrated dancer who is always considering leaving him, her brother, called in by her ... more »to assist over this step, and -- later -- the brother's fiancée, who is equally uncertain whether or not to run away. In the course of one hectic night and morning, with continual running up and downstairs and in and out of rooms, these characters -- each immersed in his or her own problem -- try to sort themselves out. The first-act Curtain finds the solicitor in bed with the wife (thinking her to be a ghost) and the fiancée inadvertently shut in the attic cupboard by the distraught tycoon who has taken refuge there in the spare bed. All this takes place in a highly ingenious and original setting, in which all the rooms, passages and stairs are on a single level.
First presented at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in the Round, Scarborough, on 28th September 1979.« less