THE BREAK OF DAY

Play by Timberlake Wertenbaker with songs by Jeremy Sams.

Haymarket Theatre Leicester
Opened 26 October 1995
Closed [date unknown]

Short UK tour [?]
{theatres/dates unknown]

Royal Court Theatre Downstairs London
Previewed 22 November 1995
Opened 28 November 1995
Closed 13 January 1996

In The Break of the Day Wernberger turns a sharp and beady eye on three women and their partners. The century is coming to an end and a feeling if dissatisfaction and unease seizes the group. Is it too late to have children? Were they wrong to focus so much on work? These questions force each of them to recast their future.

This play was commissioned by the Out of Joint Theatre Company as a 'campanion' piece to Chekhov's Three Sisters, which it mirrors.

• Cast
• Production Team
• Song Lyrics
• Quotes from the Press
• Links

When I was a little girl,
'Bout seven years old,
I hadn't got a petticoat
To keep me from cold,

So I went into Darlington,
That pretty little town,
And there I bought a petticoat,
A cloak and a gown.

(Chorus)
Hark to me,
Listen what I say,
Little girls are important
At the break of day.

I went into the woods,
And built me a kirk,
And all the birds of the air,
They helped me to work.

The hawk with his long claws
Pulled down the stone,
The dove with her rough bill
Brought me them home.

(Chorus)

The parrot was the clergyman
The peacock the clerk,
The bullfinch played the organ,
And we made merry work.

(Chorus)

(Chorus)

(Traditional)

"...Maria Friedman who sweetly sings Jeremy Sam's dull song's..." Nicholas de Jongh, The London Evening Standard (29 November 1995)

"...Maria Friedman, one of the most vibrant talents on the modern stage, is exiled for the entire second act in a tediously protracted battle with Eastern European bureaucracy in order to adopt a sick baby. Thank God, cast as a successful recording artist of meaningful music, she at least gets to sing..." Jack Tinker, The Daily Mail (29 November 1995)

"...I want to applaud the way that well-known actreses like Maria Friedman and Anita Donson try to extend their range by tackling plays like this; in the event, however, the play does not return the compliment. Both look limited..." Alastair Macaulay, The Financial Times (30 November 1995)

"...Even Maria Friedman, who plays Nina, can't make anything of the creepily inauthentic ballads by Jeremy Sams that punctuate the proceedings." John Gross, The Sunday Telegraph (3 December 1995)

• Out of Joint Theatre Company

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