Skittles, 1992

Synopsis of Skittles

Skittles was a new play written by Peter Burley and was first performed at the Grange Theatre. The title echoes the Oxfordshire pub game of Aunt Sally in which players throw sticks at a model of a woman’s head. The play opens in the South of France following the funeral of Misha whose three lovers all with the name of Sally are gathered for the reading of Misha’s will. Sarah (Sally) Gold, Sally Knight and Sally Noon. Eventually all three of these ‘skittles’ are metaphorically knocked down. The play is a study of love in its various guises with cynicism, bitterness and acrimony at its heart.

Peter’s own outline of the play which he wrote for the programme reads as follows:

“A dead man writes in his will ‘Why did I live and why did I stop living? The same – all for love in its different guises.’ In Skittles the spectral forms of love hide behind its many masks and pass, like shadows, across the lives of the characters in the play.