Stanley (play)

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Stanley is a Tony-nominated play written by Pam Gems in 1996. The play explores the complicated life of British painter Stanley Spencer, who was played by Anthony Sher in the play's London and Broadway debuts.

Spencer was a surprisingly conservative 20th century painter, whose work was at odds with Modernism and attempted to find the divine in mundane, ordinary scenes. His paintings frequently showed Biblical scenes taking place in ordinary English villages like Cookham, and sometimes included his friends, relatives and lovers.

Spencer married two different women, each of whom was a gifted painter in her own right. He left his first wife Hilda, a conventional woman who loved him, in order to marry Patricia, a defiantly unconventional lesbian who was incapable of loving him. Much of the play revolves around his passionate attachment to both women.