The Writing Site of Michael
Black
A European Playwright Writing In English
The Amber Room
The Amber Room is a play about the history of the Amber Room, originally a present from Frederick William of Prussia to Peter the Great of Russia in 1716. The Amber Room went missing at the end of WWII, worth at least 50m dollars at todays prices. The play is also about Immanuel Kant, cartoons and clichés, the movie Casablanca and the collapse of Communism.
Essentially, it's a missing treasure story, with several other genre-plots bolted on. It deconstructs clichés and puts them back together in new orders, and as such is inherently post-modern.
And for performance outside
the U.K. it would need some re-working. There are English football jokes
in it, and also notions of the Scotsman as an outsider in English society
for example, that would need translating into other situations. Anyway,
if you're interested ...
Cast: 4 men, 2 women
Production history: The Old Red Lion Theatre, London, 1998.
