Ayckbourn's series of five interlocked plays typify his black comedies of human behavior in recognizable and absurd domestic situations. First produced in 1976, the plays are alternately naturalistic, stylized and farcical, but underlying each is the problem of loneliness and characters who suffer the result of being ignored.

The Mother Figure shows a mother unable to escape from baby talk with adults; in The Drinking Companion an aging absentee husband clumsily attempts seduction without success; in Between Mouthfuls, an embarrassed waiter witnesses domestic...