In 1973, Alan Aykbourn wrote a trilogy of plays about six people together in the same house over the course of a weekend. Collectively titled The Norman Conquests, the plays were intended to stand alone or seen together. The collection was a succès d'estime, and while the individual plays have been produced few companies have dared to mount the entire trilogy.

Emboldened by a 2008 Old Vic revival that played Broadway in 2009, Cygnet Theatre decided to produce all three plays in repertory to open its 2010-11 season. The result is a stunning success that deserves to perform to full houses throughout its 16-week run.

To get a sense of Aykbourn’s accomplishment, it’s best to examine the characters instead of the plays. The weekend visit brings together three siblings and their spouses (or, in one case, prospective spouse). The siblings are Annie (Jo Anne Glover), who lives in the house and cares for her aging mother (an unseen character whose presence upstairs looms over the entire household), Reg (Ron Choularton), her brother, and Ruth (Frances Anita Rivera), her sister. Reg’s spouse is Sarah (Sandy Campbell), and Ruth’s spouse is Norman (Albert Dayan). The sixth character is Tom (Danny Campbell), the local veterinarian, a shy man who may be interested in dating Annie but who only succeeds in hanging around the house.

Jo Anne Glover and Albert Dayan

Photo by Luke Olson

The plot is set off when Norman, a compulsive womanizer, invites Annie to spend a weekend with him at a resort hotel, in order, he says, to give her a break from caring for her mother. Reg and Sarah park their children with grandparents so they can take over while Annie’s away. Ruth shows up once Norman’s lecherous plans have been revealed, causing Annie to stay home instead.

The three plays, while artifacts of the 1970s (and Jeanne Reith’s clever and colorful costumes set the production in that era), portray characters and relationships that are strikingly contemporary. All of the characters deal with issues of solitude and togetherness, intimacy and loneliness, connection and escape that may well be universal.

The timeline is also important. The action begins at 5:30pm on Saturday and ends a little after 9:00am on Monday. Mr. Aykbourn helpfully provides a day and time for each scene. Within each play, the day and time serves merely to indicate how much time has elapsed between scenes, but between plays the day and time establishes what else has happened or is happening simultaneously. Thus, there is a lot going on in all three plays early Saturday evening (all three plays have scenes that overlap one another) and on Monday morning (where two plays have scenes that are occurring simultaneously), but each play then fills in different events that happen between the beginning and the end of the weekend. Mr. Aykbourn cleverly provides sufficient plot and relationship information in each play (without becoming repetitive if one sees more than one play) that the three all stand on their own. Each play tells both a complete and an incomplete story: audiences who see only one play will feel satisfied, but audiences that see more than one play will have their experiences enhanced significantly.

Each play is set in a different area of the house, and each play has its own tone. Round and Round in the Garden is set in the garden, contains both the first and last scene in the chronology, and is the most farcical of the three. Living Together is set in the sitting room and is the most psychologically revealing play about each of the individual characters. Table Manners is set in the dining room and focuses on the relationships the characters have with each other, as highlighted hilariously when Sarah is trying to seat everyone at the table for dinner.

Cygnet is presenting the plays so that you can see all three in three days or you can see all three in a marathon on Saturdays at noon, 4:00pm, and 8:00pm. As each play runs about two hours and fifteen minutes, there is ample time between plays on marathon days to enjoy a meal and stretch one’s legs. I highly recommend seeing all three plays, as there are surprises in each one that will enhance both the humor and explain references that might have passed by casually in the other plays.

It doesn’t matter in which order you see the plays (the order I saw them was the garden, the sitting room, and the dining room). The general setting is the same for each play, but the playing space is rearranged with furniture and/or plants to indicate the area of the house where the play occurs (Sean Fanning designed the set, Michelle Caron the lighting, and Bonnie L. Durban the properties). The trilogy was originally written for presentation in the round, but Cygnet’s thrust stage mostly works in allowing for the dimensionality of the setting and fluidity of movement that the plays demand (though, some characters will spend more time with their backs to you than might feel comfortable).

The cast started strong and grew stronger as the marathon day progressed. Across the three plays, the six parts are roughly equal in length, and cast members presented the strengths and foibles of their characters without apology. There are no heroes or villains here: you’ll like each character sometimes and not like that character at other times. Co-directors Sean Murray and Francis Gercke have kept the marvelous ensemble on track with their tricky character arcs, but they’ve also done a great job with what in film is called “continuity” (for example, Annie walks into the house from the garden carrying a vase of flowers in her right hand—she is still carrying it in her right hand as she enters the dining room from the garden in another play). American casts speaking with British accents are always a bugaboo, and Annie Hinton has coached most cast members to suggest British sounds, rather than perform them. That approach strikes my American ears as a good compromise, though Brits viewing this production may be dissatisfied with what they hear.

In sum, these are wonderful plays that are rarely performed in repertory as intended. Congratulations to Cygnet Theatre for giving San Diego its theatrical event of the year.

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