A SAMUEL FRENCH, LTD. TITLE

Minor Murder

Full-Length Play  /  5f, 3m

Reginald Denham, Mary Orr

The scene is a remote ranch in the Australian outback, where Shirley, a widow, lives with her teenage daughter, Margaret. Shirley has become disturbed by the intense relationship that has grown between Margaret and her friend, Carla, the child of her late foreman, who Shirley took in after her parents' death.

  • Cast Size
    Cast Size
    5f, 3m
  • SubGenre
    Subgenre
    Mystery/Thriller

Details

Summary
To eliminate Carla's influence over Margaret, Shirley decides to send her daughter to boarding school and Carla to live with relatives. This plan leaves the girls devastated. Their bond is even more unhealthy than anyone suspected, and to avoid separation the girls coolly arrange to murder Shirley, charting each step so that it will appear to be an accident. at first, it is accepted by all, including Shirley's best friend, Patricia, and her attorney, Claude. But then, with growing horror the two grown-ups unearth small inconsistencies. To get at the truth, Patricia and Claude devise a strategy as clever as the crime itself, and painstakingly stalk their quarry, who outwit them at every turn until, in the final, chilling moments of the play, an ironic twist of fate causes them to become the means of their own undoing.

    Licensing & Materials

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    Authors

    Author

    Reginald Denham

    Mary  Orr

    Mary Orr

    MARY CASWELL ORR was an American actress and author whose short story The Wisdom of Eve, published in the May 1946 issue of Cosmopolitan, was the basis of the Academy Award-winning film All About Eve (1950). In 1964, Orr and her husband, director-playwright Reginald Denham, a ...

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