Foote Print Play Scripts
Welcome to Foote Print Play Scripts,
a series of published plays written by Glyn Idris Jones.Beautiful For Ever
Available 2011
Set in 1867 it is based on an episode in the life of Madame Sarah Rachel Leverson, a complete charlatan who boasted she could make any woman no matter how plain Beautiful For Ever.
Having known poverty and outlived three husbands, Madame Rachel has found a lucrative occupation she has no intention of losing. Making use of knowledge gained from one husband, a chemist’s assistant, she makes up worthless potions and elixirs, gives them romantic names, and battens on the desire of foolish, ignorant women to remain “beautiful for ever” , aided - with increasing concern- by her eldest daughter, Leonte.
The silly, simpering Mrs Borrodaile seems a prize victim, and Madame uses all her cunning to defraud her, even to the creation of a supposed titled lover. She divests her of all she possesses and even causes her to be imprisoned for debt. But at last she over reaches herself: nemeses arrives from an unexpected source, and as the play ends the shadows of retribution fall across Madame Rachel’s face.