In common with the great Anton Chekhov, playwrights Alan Ayckbourn and Buffalo's A.R. Gurney both make effective use of small sets which serve multiple purposes as well as indirect action - the off stage drama churning beneath the service. In Ayckbourn's "Snake in the Grass" two sisters reunite after the death of their abusive father. In Gurney's "Family Furniture" a mother might have engaged in an infidelity, but nobody is talking, at least not directly, in the drama set in Buffalo in the 1950s.
"Snake in the Grass" is a Red Thread Theatre production at the Marie Mayday Theatre in Lyons Hall on the Canisius College Main Street campus and runs through Sunday, February 1st. "Family Furniture" is at the Kavinoky Theatre on the D'Youville College campus on Porter Avenue and also runs through February 1st.
