''The White Liars'' is a one-act play by

Peter Shaffer Sir Peter Levin Shaffer (; 15 May 1926 – 6 June 2016) was an English playwright, screenwriter, and novelist. He wrote numerous award-winning plays, of which several were adapted into films. Early life Shaffer was born to a Jewish family in L ...

, first performed in 1967 originally titled ''White Lies''. It is often performed with another of Shaffer's one-act plays, ''

Black Comedy Black comedy, also known as dark comedy, morbid humor, or gallows humor, is a style of comedy that makes light of subject matter that is generally considered taboo, particularly subjects that are normally considered serious or painful to disc ...

'', to form the double-bill of ''The White Liars and Black Comedy''. ''The White Liars'' revolves around Sophie Lemberg, an eccentric and disillusioned

fortune teller Fortune telling is the practice of prediction, predicting information about a person's life.J. Gordon Melton, Melton, J. Gordon. (2008). ''The Encyclopedia of Religious Phenomena''. Visible Ink Press. pp. 115-116. The scope of fortune telling ...

(who imagines herself to be a

baron Baron is a rank of nobility or title of honour, often hereditary, in various European countries, either current or historical. The female equivalent is baroness. Typically, the title denotes an aristocrat who ranks higher than a lord or kn ...

ess of the

Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire was a political entity in Western, Central, and Southern Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its dissolution in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars. From the accession of Otto I in 962 unt ...

) living in a decaying seaside resort, and the two young men—Tom, the lead singer in a rock band, and Frank, his business manager—who consult her. It soon becomes clear that their lives are much stranger than the fiction Sophie tries to create in her magic ball.

Development

Shaffer wrote ''White Lies'' to precede the 1967 Broadway production of his farce ''Black Comedy'', presented by Alexander H. Cohen at the

Ethel Barrymore Theatre The Ethel Barrymore Theatre is a Broadway theater at 241 West 47th Street in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Opened in 1928, it was designed by Herbert J. Krapp in the Elizabethan, Mediterranean, and Adam styles ...

. But Shaffer was dissatisfied with the piece. As he put it in his Preface to his 1982 Collected Plays, "The dramatic pulse was too low, and the work came out a little mechanically." When the double bill was subsequently produced in London at the Lyric Theatre directed by Peter Wood, Shaffer rewrote the play extensively and retitled it ''The White Liars''. Shaffer was happier with this version, but as he put it, "it was marred by an offstage tape representing the voice of Sophie's Greek lover." It was not until the play's third incarnation in 1976 at the

Shaw Theatre The Shaw Theatre is a theatre in Somers Town, in the London Borough of Camden. It is a part of the Pullman London St Pancras hotel, located off Euston Road. St Pancras library Before being refurbished in 1998, the Shaw Theatre originally open ...

in London directed by Paul Giovanni that Shaffer was satisfied with it. Sophie's Greek lover was written out of the story entirely, and Tom and Frank underwent extreme changes from their original characters.

Production History

For the Production History of ''The White Liars'', see the Production History for ''Black Comedy''.

References

External links

''The White Liars'' at Samuel French, Inc.
* {{DEFAULTSORT:White Liars 1967 plays Broadway plays