|
LIB/CON (2008)
At Sherrie Gallerie in the Short North. What, you may well ask, is LIB/CON? The LIB stands for Dave Carly’s drama, THE LAST LIBERAL. CON stands for the same playwrights’s CONSERVATIVES IN LOVE. There you have it, the entire political
spectrum!
“The play is
quick-paced, funny and the rapid scene changes lend immediacy and an energy to the production that makes it impossible to
be lulled. The Last Liberal is too singular a tale to be universally about
politics; it isn’t just about what a government will do to stay in power,
bur rather what a parent will do to save his son. And it is there that the
play ultimately succeeds." (The Ottawa Citizen)
"Think of
Dave Carley's latest as a wonderfully plotted
French farce with a brain. Ten interconnected people find themselves caught
up in politics and sexual adventures when they attend a Young Conservatives
event at a local art gallery. The result is totally engaging and
entertaining, with sharply drawn characters and zingers that skewer left,
right and centre." Jon Kaplan, NOW.
Hungry Hearts (2006)
This adaptation by
Katherine Burkman of the novel by Francine
Prose is about the
Yiddish theatre in the 1920s, and their tour of South America with a production of Ansky’s
THE DYBBUK. The leading lady gets invaded by a real dybbuk! Performed at the Roth/Resler
Theatre, The Leo Yassenoff Jewish Community
Center of Greater Columbus.
GERTRUDE STEIN GERTRUDE STEIN
GERTRUDE STEIN,
By Marty Martin (2006)
A one-person
staged reading, performed by Katherine Burkman -
Stein and her significant other, Alice Toklas,
are being evicted from their famous studio at 27 rue de Fleurus,
where they entertained the major modern artists and writers of the 1920s
and 30s. Gertrude brings them all alive as she recalls their visits and
faces her eviction.
Woman In A Yellow Dress (2005)
This work is a
site-specific drama written by WOMEN AT PLAY. It centers around
a poetry-writing group and their quest for the woman in the yellow dress
who has been stealing their most prized photographs, which they had planned
to use for their poetry reading about family. Performed at a Bexley
Home.at the Columbus Museum of Art, and at the Riffe
Gallery.
Orchidelirium (2005) - This
2003 work by Canadian playwright David Carley
enjoyed a successful two-week run in 2004 at an off-Broadway theatre in New
York, to enthusiastic reviews. The play explores the passion for orchids of
two couples in two different time periods, the Victorian and the present,
interweaving their stories and their eras in very imaginative ways (one is
reminded of Stoppard’s “Arcadia” in this respect). The medicinal properties of orchids and
the interests of the pharmaceutical industry heighten the drama. Since the
orchid collection at issue is housed in Pittsburgh, at a university, contemporary questions about
research conflicts of interest between academia and industry sponsors, and
politics have impact on the couples. The playwright joined Women at Play
during the second week of production and participated in talkbacks. The
play was performed at the Franklin Park Conservatory.
Doubletalk:
Love And Marriage (2005) - A play written by
Women at Play, Doubletalk explores the communications challenges of three
couples who are in therapy to learn what each other needs and how to bridge
disconnections. Their therapist is an innovative practitioner whose
unorthodox approaches include shopping, dancing, and gardening. With the
institution of marriage much in the news with the debate raging about gay
partnerships, the play offers both a comedic and serious look at some of
the issues. One of the hallmarks of Women at Play is their site specific
work. Doubletalk Was set at the Jung Haus in the
Short North. Jung Haus is home to Jungian
analysts and analysts in training. It also features an intriguing art
gallery. Visit their web site at www.jungcentralohio.org
It’s Academic (2004) – Women at
Play’s original drama is a play that takes place
at an academic conference, about the initiation of the young into the
politics of university life.
The
Edible Woman (2004)
- American
premiere of Dave Carley’s adaptation of a
Margaret Atwood novel. The play is a comedy about a young women’s growing
awareness of her role as the possibly consumed in a consumer society.
The
Chairs (2003) - Eugene Ionesco’s play about an elderly couple on an island who
share their newly discovered message about life’s meaning.
Open House (2003)
A premiere of a new WOMEN
AT PLAY drama. The audience moved from room to room and met some of the
zany people who had come to explore the possibility of owning the house.
Mainly Mad: A Reading
(2003)
A collage of scenes of women's madness at the
Hawk Galleries, 153 E. Main Street.
Double Bill (2002)
The Room And Celebration
Harold Pinter himself, often considered
the world's greatest living playwright, directed the two plays and brought
them to New York's Lincoln Center Pinter Festival in the fall of
2001. Since The Room is the first play Pinter wrote (1957) and
Celebration is his most recent major work (2000), the double bill offers a
fine overview of his achievement. The dark comedies are double cast,
so that the same actors inhabit the seedy rooming house from which Rose
fears she will be ousted in the first play, as well as the elegant
restaurant at which upper class characters celebrate their empty lives in
the more recent play. WOMEN AT PLAY's
artistic coordinator, Katherine Burkman has
published widely on Pinter (she is a Professor Emerita
from OSU's Department of English).
She Of The Lovely
Ankle (2002)
This play, written by Women at Play and
set in a corporate environment, explored one of the great myths - that of
Persephone’s unwitting journey to the underworld and her return to earth
every six months. She is tantalized by a narcissus flower, seductively
placed by Hades in the fields where she wanders in innocence. While
entranced by the flower, she is abducted by Hades, who makes her queen of
his underworld domain. Mourning her lost daughter, Demeter, goddess of the
corn, refuses to foster growth and winter sets in. This deprives the gods
of their earthly sacrifices, so Zeus demands Persephone’s return. However,
having partaken of a pomegranate seed in Hades, Persephone must return
there each year to her husband – hence the seasons: when she is in Hades it
is winter; when she returns to earth it is spring. The myth explores a
power struggle between the sexes. By reconsidering the imagery and
interplay of psychic energies we may see Persephone as a young woman of
purpose who takes control of her life on her own terms. The reframing helps
us become familiar with classical Greek tragedy
and modern day adversity in a way that transforms all for a greater good.
Situating the play in a corporate setting brought together the unfamiliar
literature of myth with the familiar environment of work.
Mrs. Klein (2001)
The play, written by Nicholas Wright, takes place in
1934 London, just when Melanie Klein's cutting-edge, though highly
controversial, theories and research methods were reverberating throughout
the international psychoanalytic profession. The plot focus of the play concerns
news of the mysterious death of Melanie Klein's son, Hans. As the action
unfolds, we gradually begin to concentrate on the often bitter rivalry for
Mrs. Klein's attentions ("affection" would be a stretch here)
between Melitta, her similarly brilliant daughter
and colleague who rejects her theories, and Paula Heimann,
a young and promising initiate into the profession, and one who has her own
needs for study and mothering. It is within the context of this
psychological battle for the alliances of the irrepressible Mrs. Klein that
we learn in bits and pieces certain past family secrets of upbringing and
negligence. Melitta confronts her mother about
the mysterious death of her brother in a rock climbing accident. A third
female analyst, Paula, has an agenda of her own and becomes embroiled in
the mother-daughter war. The characters analyze themselves and each other
to death. Melanie Klein is a woman who, with little apparent irony, can
claim that the three drawers in her filing cabinet represent her Id, Ego
and Superego.
Still Lives (2001)
In
this drama, written by WOMEN AT PLAY and including original songs and
music, several paintings come to life. In the second act the characters
from the paintings meet at midnight at the famous
Columbus Topiary of George Seurat's SUNDAY
AFTERNOON ON THE ISLE DE LA GRANDE
JATTE. One of the play's actors gives a tour prior to the play, in his
character, walking with audience members a block over to the topiary. In
the Topiary, an idyllic, Edenesque setting, two
of the topiary figures come to life; there is a general encounter with the
snake. Columbus artists Marjorie Bender, Brian Lovely, Barbara Vogel,
Charles Feeser, Lindsey Alexander, and Deborah Burkman created the paintings which come to life.
Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein (2001 and 2002)
In
this imaginary monologue, set on the eve of Gertrude Stein's eviction from
the famous studio at 27 rue de Fleurus, where
Stein and her companion, Alice B. Toklas,
entertained the major modern artists and writers of the '20s and '30s, the
artists she nurtured come alive, often in Stein's own words. Meet
Hemingway, Picasso, Matisse, Isadora Duncan, and others! One gets a sense,
too, of Stein's cubist style of writing, which broke boundaries for all
writers, making her a pioneering woman in her time! This drama, written by
Marty Martin, was originally performed by Pat Carroll, won the 1980 Outer
Critics Circle Award as the outstanding production of a play off-Broadway.
|
