debates. Also, actors and audiences need breathing spaces; actors need spaces in the script to ad lib and audiences need spaces to relax and cough. Importantly, if the play contains lines which authors pray will generate hysterical laughter they have to write trivial dialogue after the humorous lines to ensure that the audience’s howls of delight do not drown out important content. ‘Filler’, therefore, serves a special purpose and explains why so many people find reading a play intolerably boring, even if they enjoy its performance on stage.
Faced with the sad task of cutting material, this reluctant play- abuser cut much of the ‘filler’ and retained the content in the knowledge that the actors would struggle to learn and deliver their lines. And so it turned out: the excellent professional actors who kindly agreed to play the characters I created had insufficient time to learn their lines which were, subsequently and wonderfully, read.
The management consultants in the audience barely laughed through the first act, partly because some of the characters say nasty things about them and partly because they had no idea what was going on. Management conferences are supposed to be entertaining but they did not expect to be confronted with a satirical play about consultants and their clients. They loosened up in the second act when managers were systematically abused. They laughed loudest when one character said that you cannot underestimate managers because they’re idiots. They laughed nervously when the psychologist/ management consultant, Lloyd, was questioned and skewered by several of those idiots.
A play allows a writer to use various literary strategies, including humour, satire, cynicism and exaggeration, which are not normally found in books on management. Some topics receive more treatment in this play than others because dialogues, whether educational or entertaining, do not follow predictable paths. Such is life.
Sydney,
2015.
ENTERTAINING EXECUTIVES
A shorter version of Entertaining Executives was first performed at the Mermaid Theatre, London, on 24 May 2006 with the following cast:
| Lucy Black | Lesley |
| Catherine Hamilton | Melanie |
| Andrew Hilton | Lloyd |
| Roland Oliver | Cooke |
| Jacob Dylan Thomas | Alfred |
| Matthew Thomas | Brian |
Directed by Andrew Hilton.
CHARACTERS
Alfred Adler, junior manager, age: late 20s
Brian Burrow, middle manager, age: mid 30s
Lesley Rogers, (female) middle manager, age: early 40s
Melanie, Human Resource Assistant, age: late 20s
Ralph Cooke, her boss, Human Resource Manager, age: late 50s
Ian Lloyd, psychologist/management consultant, age: early 50s
SCENE: Office with desk and several chairs. Brian sits working at desk. Enter Alf brandishing a letter.
ALF: Brian, have you seen this letter?
BRIAN: What letter?
ALF: The old man himself has written to me.
BRIAN: To you? You’re kidding.
ALF: In five years I’ve never received a letter from ‘on high’.
BRIAN: It must be a mistake.
ALF: No, no. I’ve been invited to a conference.
BRIAN: You? To a conference?
ALF: A conference for high potential managers.
BRIAN: Then it’s definitely a mistake.
ALF: Why?
BRIAN: (snatching letter and reading) Give it to me. ‘Dear Colleagues’. This is not addressed to you! Nowhere does it say ‘Dear Alfred’ or ‘Mr Adler’.
ALF: My name is on the envelope.
BRIAN: But the letter is not addressed to you personally.
ALF: (retrievingletter) Give it back. (Reads)“Congratulations, you have been selected from a large number of candidates to attend the Advanced Management Conference…”
BRIAN: Why ‘advanced’? How can management be ‘advanced’?
ALF: Perhaps it’s for junior managers like me who want to be…
BRIAN: Senior managers?
ALF: Well, I don’t want to be a junior manager forever.
BRIAN: You’re not a junior manager. You’re a clerk who tells other clerks what to do.
ALF: But that’s important.
BRIAN: Our managers make it difficult for people to do their jobs. Is that important?
ALF: (shakes his head and returns to letter) “The conference will run for five challenging days when you will be educated in the latest theories of management.”
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