Black Comedy

The Main Stage of Theatro Skala presents one of the best comedies of the 20th century - the "Black Comedy" by Peter Saffer directed by Theodoros Nikolaidis.

Black Comedy is a one-act play by British dramatist Peter Shaffer, first performed in 1965. The play is, suitably enough, a black comedy in which the effect loss of light would have on a group of people who all hold things from each other is explored; as such, its title is a pun.

The play is a farce set in a London flat during an electrical blackout, and is written to be staged under a reversed lighting scheme: that is, the play opens with a dinner party beginning on a darkened stage, then a few minutes into the show "a fuse blows", the stage lights come up, and the characters are seen shambling around apparently invisible to one another.

The plot in brief is as follows: Brindsley Miller and his fiancée Carol Melkett have "borrowed" the fancy furniture from neighbor Harold Gorringe's flat in order to impress Carol's father, Colonel Melkett. Brindsley, an artist, is afraid that the Colonel will not give up his daughter to a starving artist. Things go awry when the lights go out, leaving Brindlsey helpless as characters arrive, one by one. First is Brindsley's elderly neighbor, Miss Furnival. Colonel Melkett, unimpressed by the blackout, arrives, and Brindsley's worst nightmare comes true as Harold returns early, and Brindsley tries desperately to return the furniture without Harold noticing.

(in Greek)