TIME & THE CONWAYS
by JB Priestley
ONLINE PARTICIPATIVE PLAY-READING
‘The poignancy of this 1937 drama is created not so much narratively, in its riches-to-rags tale, as structurally, in the contrast between its three acts. It begins in well-made-play mode as the Conway family hold an airy house party: dressing-up games, jovial banter and bourgeois inconsequentiality. There is nothing here to unsettle an interwar West End audience, until Priestley takes a startling break from the formula. Boldly, he flashes forward to show the same characters 20 years on, their hopes dashed, their promise unfulfilled. What seemed breezy and slight becomes weighted with emotion.’ (The Guardian)