The Plays of Aphra Marlowe: The Castaways series

 

The Castaways marks the beginning of Marlowe’s commercially successful experiment with short-form comedies featuring a recurring cast of characters. In the “Castaways” series, these are a group of social archetypes (or stereotypes, to the less charitable critic) stranded on a desert island and forced to build a functioning society-in-miniature to sustain themselves until help may arrive. 

 

 

In the early installments, Marlowe wrings great comic effect from this close-quarters class conflict; however, every well eventually runs dry, and increasingly she resorts to gimmicks such as “celebrities” (thinly disguised for legal reasons) becoming temporarily stranded with her regular cast. The last of these is a strained caricature of the adventurer Drizzt Do’Urden, whom a belatedly self-aware Marlowe uses to deliver the message “quit while you’re ahead.”