The Storyteller Sequence

The Storyteller Sequence is a series of one act dramas written for young people by Philip Ridley. To date there are five plays in the sequence, although Ridley has intimated there will eventually be seven. The five written to date are "Karamazoo", "Fairytaleheart", "Moonfleece", "Sparkleshrak" and "Brokenville".

Plot summaries

Karamazoo

Fairytaleheart

In Fairytaleheart two 15 year old youths deal with ruptured families and homelessness by embracing their hopes and fears in a derelict community centre.

Kirsty's mother passed away three years ago, but she is still grieving whilst watching her father announce his engagement to her 'stepmother' she flees her own birthday party and sits alone in the community centre that was once her mother's 'kingdom', where she then meets Giddion: the complete opposite to popular, pretty, pretentious Kirsty. He's a scruffy boy with 'rat tails' for hair. Together by the cathasis of storytelling they entre the magic world of karamazoo and search for the 'luminous butterfly'. Finally finding it in themselves to see their problems in a new light. The story ends seeming as though they are about to kiss.

Moonfleece

parkleshark

Brokenville

Brokenville has had the longest gestation period of all Ridley's plays. It was first performed as Cavesongs and was part of Ridley's performance art work while he was a student at St Martin's School of Art. It was then done as an afternoon rehearsed reading at the Hampstead Theatre in London (with Jude Law playing one of the parts, fresh from doing Ridley's The Fastest Clock In The Universe) and subsequently presented as a work-in-progress for a short run under the name of Apocalyptica. Ridley continued working on the play, until it become Brokenville, and it subsequently became part of the Shell Connections plays for young people and performed at the Olivier Stage of the National Theatre in England in 2003.