The National Theatre of London now films stage productions of selected hit plays and presents them for limited runs in movie theaters. The production uses multiple cameras, and employs devices such as close-ups to provide emotional or comic intensity not easily available in a huge theater. A Small Family Business is a very dark comedy by the prolific acclaimed playwright Alan Ayckbourn in which a man takes over his father-in-law’s business to discover that not only is it dishonest, but that he has married into a nest of vipers. The need to survive puts him on a slippery slope of compromise, and in a vortex of rampant greed, hilarity ensues from the brilliantly inventive mind of Ayckbourn.
July 6 at noon, July 7 at 7:15 p.m., July 9 at 7 p.m., July 12 at 12:30 p.m., various Houston theaters including Sundance Cinemas. $8 to $11.
Sun., July 6, noon; Mon., July 7, 7:15 p.m.; Wed., July 9, 7:30 p.m.; Sat., July 12, 12:30 p.m., 2014
This article appears in Jul 3-9, 2014.