‘harvey’-by Mary Chase & directed by Alan Buttery
7.30pm • Thursday 4th – Saturday 6th February 2016
The Carriageworks Main Stage Tickets: £12/£9
Elwood and his best friend Harvey are known and loved all over town – from the cafés and pubs to the town’s incinerator. They enjoy meeting old friends, making new friends and having a good chat!
Elwood’s sister Veta is so embarrassed by Elwood and Harvey’s friendship that she plots to get rid of Harvey for good.
Veta has a plan – but how does one get rid of an invisible, anthropomorphic six-foot three-inch rabbit…?
Tickets are on sale, available from the Carriageworks Box Office, in the Electric Press building on Millennium Square. Please call in person, or telephone 0113 376 0318. You can also book your tickets online.
Carriageworks main auditorium
A note from the director, Alan Buttery:
I was very pleased to have the opportunity to direct a play with Leeds Arts Centre and I wanted to find a nice comedy that actually ‘says something’ about the world. After reading Harvey, I knew I couldn’t resist the characters in this thought-provoking play, or Mary Chase’s brilliant, gentle-yet-brutal comedy writing.
Harvey has such universal appeal that I knew that a British version would be great fun to direct, and I was delighted when the publishers granted us permission to set the play in Britain.
I decided to set the play in 1953 – mercifully, progressive reform in the treatment of mental health from the mid 1950s onwards means that some procedures and treatments in the story would make the play unworkable if it were set in later decades.
All the same, it is no surprise to me that Harvey continues to entertain audiences over 70 years on, as I think it still to raises questions and deals with themes that are universal and relevant today. Besides, could all learn something from Elwood, couldn’t we?
Alan
