Bernard Shaw: Plays Unpleasant

Posted by DCA Theater on May 11, 2009 in January-June 2009 Season, Ghosts, Other

On Thursday, May 7 DCA Theater hosted Bernard Shaw: Plays Unpleasant presented by the Birmingham Committee of The Chicago Sister Cities International Program.

Actor’s Equity Association actors Joseph Bowen, Kevin Fox, Jack Hickey and Kathy Logelin presented scenes from Widowers’ Houses under the direction of Robert Scogin, Artistic Director of ShawChicago. Widowers’ Houses (1892) was the first play by Nobel Prize in literature winner George Bernard Shaw to be staged. It is one of three plays Shaw published as Plays Unpleasant in 1898.

Following the scenes Professor Joel Kaplan (freelance writer and theatre historian based in Birmingham, U.K. and Florence, Italy) gave an insightful lecture on Shaw as a socially-conscious playwright.

Prof. Joel Kaplan lecturing. Pictured in slide:
(left) George Bernard Shaw as young radical
(right) William Archer, fellow critic, playwright and one-time collaborator

Photo blog 5-6-09

Posted by DCA Theater on May 8, 2009 in January-June 2009 Season, INCUBATOR Series: Rubicon Theatre Project

by Scott Allen Luke, Managing Director of Rubicon Theatre Project

Actors, Jeff Taylor & Tori Ulrich

Actor, April Pletcher Taylor

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First Read Through

Posted by DCA Theater on May 7, 2009 in January-June 2009 Season, INCUBATOR Series: Rubicon Theatre Project

by Scott Allen Luke, Managing Director of Rubicon Theatre Project and actor playing Andre and Ewan

As the Managing Director of Rubicon Theatre Project, I feel it’s probably necessary to mention at the onset that “Becoming Ingrid” is a play that has already been written.  A New York-based playwright, Liza Lentini, has written the piece.  She feels confident with where the script is at right now, so now we are digging deep this month to explore the depths of the play and the relationships between the characters.

“Becoming Ingrid” is a lot about being alone versus the companionship you have with a spouse, a life partner, a significant other.  It’s also about obsession and what happens when one human elevates another human to godlike stature.  Why do people do that?  It’ll be interesting to explore this idea. 

The piece is also very wordy.  In fact, the main character Christine, mentions this quite a bit throughout the script.  She seems to yearn to hide behind beautiful words in the midst of an otherwise “un-“beautiful world.  Does that really work? 

Dance Crash Opening Night Reception

Posted by DCA Theater on April 23, 2009 in January-June 2009 Season, Movement/ Gentlemen

After the sold out opening night performance of Chicago Dance Crash’s Movement/Gentlemen, the audience joined the cast and crew for food, music and drinks on the Storefront Mezzanine.

Special thanks to ROTI Mediterranean Grill for catering (and to Wayne, the fantastic server); our generous beer sponsors Three Floyds and Goose Island Brewing Co; and DJ Josh Werner who created a great atmosphere for the party.

If you missed out on the Dance Crash reception, join us on Thursday, June 11 for the opening night performance and reception for Theater Oobleck’s Strauss at Midnight. Josh Werner will be back with more great music along with ROTI, Three Floyds and Goose Island. Get your tickets here.

Josh Werner

Claire Sutton, Maurine Mizwicki and Eva Silverman

Crowd on the Mezzanine

An anecdote and additional reading

Posted by DCA Theater on April 21, 2009 in January-June 2009 Season, Strauss At Midnight

Written by Jeff Dorchen, playwright

An anecdote about the genesis for Strauss at Midnight:

Bill Cusack, a former member of Tim Robbins’ Actors’ Gang theater company, took me to see Tim’s crappy play about the then-and-still current Iraq war, “Embedded.” The play wouldn’t have been quite as annoying as it was had it not included a scene or two in which the inner circle of the Bush administration shouted, “All hail Leo Strauss!”

There was absolutely no indication who Leo Strauss was or what he had to do with the action or meaning of the play. There was certainly no indication Tim Robbins knew anything about Strauss or what he might have to do with any type of policy of any sort whatsoever.

I found that situation embarrassing. If Strauss had something to do with the extremism of neo-conservatism, then some kind of didactic art could surely be created to explore it, even if only on an agit-prop level. I’m no expert on Strauss. My sense of his place in the current discussions of right and wrong statesmanship is attached to many ideas I’ve explored in other plays: ideas about privilege, situationist ideas about power distribution, the relationship between art and popular culture, etc. You know, all that Oobleckery.

If nothing else I would like to think of Strauss at Midnight as a corrective to the abuse of Brechtian strategy and general good sense represented by Tim Robbins’ hack job.

The more I explored the relationships in the play the more it became about Jewish authorship - as well as fake Jewish authorship (represented by the Protocols). That the Protocols were plagiarized from a play about Machiavelli in Hell just seemed too loaded with meaning to be ignored, especially given Strauss’s opinion about Machiavelli’s pivotal role in the development of modern humanist values.

Strauss originated, in my opinion, the only intellectually substantial challenge to Western humanism since Nietzshe, who seemed a lot more ambivalent about his challenge than Strauss ever was about anything. Given Strauss’s importance, and the international catastrophe attributed by some in part to his political philosophy, it would seem to me Liberalism could do a lot more to stand up for itself than let Tim Robbins drool his boogery way across the stage.

So there’s some background, which doesn’t include anything about The Odd Couple, but that’s its own kettle of fish.

Click “Read more” to view a copy of the reading list Jeff sent to the cast to prepare them for Strauss at Midnight

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