The Fifth String

Synopsis

‘The Fifth String’ is based on a melodramatic short story by John Philip Sousa (yes, the ‘March King’ and writer of theme music for Monty Python). Some might opine that he should have stuck to music. Giotti, a virtuoso violinist, falls madly in love with Eva Stanhope, a tin-eared garage fan who appreciates neither his talent nor his type of music. Driven to desperation by his desire for her, he agrees to a proposition from the devil by which he acquires both the best instrument ever made – a five-string violin made by Satan himself out of THAT tree – and the woman of his dreams. Of course, there is a catch, and a price to pay – there are certain notes he must never play, and the fifth string is strictly taboo on pain of death – but what’s a man to do if his woman demands he play it for her? Terry Morgan has converted Sousa’s nineteenth-century melodrama into a twenty-first century farce.

            ‘The Fifth String’ is one of four one-act comedies designed to be played by the same cast on the same night, with simple sets. In each play, the devil sports with mankind – in ‘The Paradise Garden’ he tempts Adam and Eve and in ‘Double Trouble’ he persecutes Noddy and Big Ears, but he meets his match in ‘The Book of Job – the Mini-musical’, a short rock musical with simple and or parodic songs (Beatles, Stones, G & S, Dylan). For details of the other three plays please contact the author via this website.