Background
Damsels in Distress began as an experiment to revive the Stephen Joseph Theatre's repertory system. Throughout the theatre's time at its first two venues, plays had largely been staged on a repertory basis, with plays being chosen and written around the actors available. After the move to the theatre's current venue in 1996, however, the system largely ended (apart from the 10×10 season in 1998), with the theatre relying more on actors hired for single roles. Partly because of this, and partly because of the ongoing financial pressure on the theatre, in 2001 Ayckbourn chose to write a set of plays which could be performed by the same company of seven actors available at the time. This included three long-standing SJT performers (Robert Austin, Jacqueline King and Bill Champion), two recent additions (Alison Pargeter and Saskia Butler) and two newcomers (Beth Tuckey and Tim Faraday).
It was originally planned for Damsels in Distress to be two plays, GamePlan and FlatSpin. Indeed, this remained the intention when GamePlan was premiered in May. It was only during rehearsals for FlatSpin when Ayckbourn considered the "company" effect to take hold, and the idea for a third play started to emerge. After getting agreement from the cast to take on a third play, it was written in the week after FlatSpin began performances, and the summer programme was rescheduled to include this play, RolePlay, late in the season.
As well as sharing the same seven actors, the trilogy was also written to use the same set: a flat in the London Docklands, where Ayckbourn himself owns a flat. Beyond that, there was no intentional link between the plays, and the only reason the name Damsels in Distress was chosen was that the plays all happened to include a female character in some sort of trouble. However, there were nonetheless a number of common themes that arose from the plays' settings: flats owned by well-to-do Londoners who know little of who their neighbours are or what they do; and seedy vices left behind from London's old East End coming back to haunt them. The plays also shared themes common to most Ayckbourn plays.
Read more about this topic: Damsels In Distress (plays)
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