Playmakers Bathsheba Doran and Paula Plum in Gloucester BY SALLY CRAGIN

Gloucester Stage Company presents work old, new, borrowed, and occasionally blue in two August offerings. Young British playwright Bathsheba Doran makes her area debut with Living Room in Africa, a drama that was developed at last year’s Eugene O’Neill Theatre Conference and is headed for New York. Versatile Paula Plum reprises her popular Plum Pudding, a collation of monologues that in this edition includes a new piece, Art Appreciation, written for Plum by Bad Dates author Theresa Rebeck.

Doran’s piece is set in a small village in Botswana, where art dealer Edward and poet Marie arrive intending to establish a gallery. But when it becomes apparent that AIDS has devastated the area, the couple reassess their purpose and their own relationship. GSC artistic director Israel Horovitz explains, " It’s a play about love and marriage as much it is about anything else. I’m always attracted to stories of people who are radicalized. This is about a woman who finds her own footing on the planet Earth in a very surprising way. "

For Doran, having Edward and Marie be artists rather than doctors opened many dramatic doors. " The poetess and the storyteller are the truth seekers. I’m trying to show the clashes of these characters, with each one being three-dimensional. "

Doran was educated at Oxford and Cambridge and came to Columbia on a Fulbright. She’s since studied playwriting at Juilliard and has worked with director Andrei Serban. Her next project is an Off Broadway adaptation of Great Expectations. " My work tends to be about recognition, and the struggle for most of my characters is understanding where they are at that moment in their history. "

Running briefly in rep with Living Room will be Plum Pudding, a dotty collection of vignettes from local favorite Paula Plum that includes Alan Bennett’s Bed Among the Lentils (from Talking Heads) and Keith Curran’s Sidekick. Plum says the new Rebeck piece is " a witty, scathing commentary on the subject of art ownership. " And Bennett’s monologue? " He’s a humorist and satirist, yet he has his finger on the pulse of the deep loneliness of the human condition. "

But the most outrageous piece is Sidekick. " This is the surviving brother of a pair of Siamese twins. He’s outrageously funny, and his life has focused around his older brother. The play is a recollection, as he rehabilitates himself on a set of parallel bars. " As for the one-person show, for Plum it’s a way to " access your technique " as an actor, " so there is a sense sometimes of amazement that this could happen with just words and you. "

Living Room in Africa | Gloucester Stage Company | Aug 11-28 | in rep with Plum Pudding | Aug 20-21 + 27-28 | $30; $20 for seniors + students | 978.281.4433