Rules for Living is a dark comedy about family dysfunction and societal norms by Sam Holcroft.
Holcroft explores coping with family dynamics and social constructs that limit behaviors through cognitive therapy.
Each movement, gesture, or voice is dictated over by the play's set of "rules" which the actors must follow to function correctly in Holcroft's world.
Sheena remembers seeing Carrie on a fictional period drama, only to have mistaken her for the wrong character.
A conversation about Francis is cut short when Adam and Sheena begin arguing on whether or not they should stay the night at his parents’ house for Christmas.
As the family moves their attention to the tasks at hand and the liquor, Carrie announces Matthew has been made partner at his firm.
Adam, irritated, is forced to share news of his article and is reminded how good of a lawyer he would have made.
Edith pushes the family to work faster and tells Sheena she hasn't put enough place settings out for lunch; Sheena has forgotten a place for her daughter, but Emma isn't joining them for the meal.
Shocked her granddaughter isn't joining them, Edith begins to clean and guilt trip Sheena into getting Emma to have lunch with them.
Sheena shares that Emma has been diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome and that they've been visiting a cognitive behavioral therapy to pinpoint the cause.
Edith is angry and overwhelmed by this news and obsessively cleans the room as she recounts her hardships as a young woman.
Trying to avoid certain topics, Edith pushes the family to play the card game, Bedlam.
The scene climaxes in bitter remarks from Adam further suggesting he knows the interest Matthew has for his wife.
Scene Five Rule 4: Adam must affect an accent and name-call to mock...until he has deflected blame.
Holcroft was commissioned to write the play for the National Theatre in 2011, however, it took her a year to come up with the concept.
[1] According to Holcroft, the idea of the play struck her while drinking coffee in the window of the National Theatre's espresso bar following a meeting with her literary agent.
I'd seen lots of them, and I'd seen them in films, and I'd seen them on TV, and I'd seen them at the theatre before, and I... wondered whether or not there could be a marriage between what- the- the- the sort of well-told of the families in a party farce that we're all quite familiar with, and whether or not I could deconstruct that in any way, or... or explain that in any way through Cognitive Behavioral techniques... And I wondered whether there was- I- as an ambition for a play, could I bring together a family and assign each one of them a personality trait or rule, and an underlying core belief that they might be struggling with, and if they lived by that rule throughout the course of the drama very strictly, would they rub up against each other, would they set each other off, would we end up in the inevitable... em... climax of the family dinner party as we've come to expect it, and would I be able to marry the two?
[1] The debut performance occurred at the National Theatre in London from March 24 to July 8, 2015.
[2][3] Red Stitch Actors Theater in Melbourne, Australia performed the play from March to mid April 2017.
[4] Many of the reviewers noticed that Holcraft's play dealt with comedy in a way to reveal a larger theme about family dysfunction and how people cope with living as well as the "Ayckbourn-esque" feeling as viewers.
[5] [6] [7] [8] Similar to the connection to Ayckbourn's work, many reviewers also picked up on the Cognitive Behavioral Theory implemented in the play.
Truman states, "Holcroft not only ridicules our perfectionist culture, but shows the neurosis beneath and lets us feel the stress of its feedback loop ourselves.
"[13] Michael Billington's review of the National Theatre production notes, "Like Ayckbourn’s Season’s Greetings, the play confirms that Christmas is often a cue for self-revelatory crisis.... this is an intelligent comedy that leaves us questioning at what point the rules for living we all adopt become a form of entrapment.
stated that the play is "wildly funny...domestic comedy in the mould of Alan Ayckbourn's Seasons Greetings.
Cavendish states, "Rules for Living at times borders on being the funniest and truest comedy I’ve seen in ages, but it’s also the strangest and most strained.
Cavendish states, "A serious theme about Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, and the way we get stuck in and must break free from negative patterns of thought.
[17] Kate Herbert of Herald Sun reviews thought it had an Aychbourn-like feel and explored the Cognitive Behavioral Theory in Holcroft's play.
While the complex characters were apparent on stage, Herbert states, "if the performances were reined in, the more complex issues of the dynamics of human behaviour might be clearer in Rules for Living, but the more reflective moments of the final scenes in this three-hour production come too late.
Woodhead states, "Kim Farrant directs a strong ensemble with verve, allowing mayhem to develop from naturalism that's attractive and sharply grounded in familiar typologies.
Tripney states, "But despite that late, delicious eruption of anarchy, there’s something rather laboured about the production as a whole – its tread is heavy.