Cuthbert's Last Stand: A One-Act Play

Winner of the 5th Annual National One-Act Play Competition in Los Angeles, this contemporary comedy of manners by award-winning playwright Andrew Biss turns the coming out story on its head in a hilarious and poignant script about truth and acceptance. 

The play begins with Mrs. Pennington-South having succeeded in coercing a handsome young man - Tristram - back to her home to have tea with her and her ill-tempered son, Cuthbert. What the shy, rather awkward Tristram doesn't realise is that he is, in fact, being presented as a possible suitor for Cuthbert. His mother's matchmaking arrangements, however, have become increasingly intolerable for Cuthbert and as the tea progresses and the intimations and pressures are ratcheted up, Cuthbert finally reaches breaking point.

Exasperated and angry, he decides that the time has come at last to confront his mother with the shocking truth that he knows can only break her heart: the open admittance of his heterosexuality.

Cuthbert's Last Stand premiered in New York in 2002 and has since gone on to have many other successful productions around the U.S. and Canada.

You can also read the continuation of Cuthbert's Last Stand in the full-length play version, Suburban Redux, which follows the further romantic adventures of these unlikely and decidedly offbeat lovebirds.