Plenty (play)

Directed by the playwright, Plenty premiered in the Lyttelton Theatre on London's South Bank on 7 April 1978, featuring Kate Nelligan as Susan, the protagonist, and Stephen Moore as Raymond.

[5] In 1985, Hare's film adaptation was directed by Fred Schepisi, with Meryl Streep as Susan, and Charles Dance, Tracey Ullman, John Gielgud, Sting, Ian McKellen, and Sam Neill in supporting roles.

[6] From 3 to 26 February 2011 the play was revived at the Crucible Theatre as part of a David Hare season (alongside Racing Demon and The Breath of Life), featuring Hattie Morahan, Edward Bennett and Bruce Alexander.

Susan Traherne, a former secret agent, is a woman conflicted by the contrast between her past, exciting triumphs and her present, more ordinary life.

Viewing society as morally bankrupt, Susan has become self-absorbed, bored, and destructive — the slow deterioration in her mental health mirrors the crises in the ruling class of post-war Britain.

Colin Ludlow, writing in London Magazine later that year, found that his fellow critics had failed to understand Plenty through "pure laziness" and because they were offered no easy solutions to the social problems presented on stage.