The Matchmaker, written by American playwright Thornton Wilder, will be the Busselton Repertory Club’s next play at the Weld Theatre.
The knockabout farce has an underlying message which gradually comes out during the show, ideal for families it will delight children as well as adults.
The play is about a tyrannical store keeper who wants to marry, because a wife is cheaper than a housekeeper.
His down-trodden niece is in love with a fashionable artist who is trying to persuade her to elope, but she is terrified of her uncle and of the world outside.
His two timid and inexperienced shop assistants escape to the city for the day to discover adventure.
A dissatisfied milliner, yearning for adventure, sweeps her young assistant away with her into the night life of 1890s New York.
All this yearning for adventure, or the fear of it, would come to nothing except for the one central character who interferes until the bold succeed, the timid learn to be brave, and the tyrant is tamed.
The play stars a large cast of young and older members, from some of whom have been on our stage for years, to a couple who haven’t appeared here before, and several who’ve brightened up our pantomimes in recent years.
