News on your favorite shows, specials & more!

Jean Cocteau Rep Presents Reading of Lorenzaccio, Jan. 23

By: Jan. 18, 2006
Get Access To Every Broadway Story

Unlock access to every one of the hundreds of articles published daily on BroadwayWorld by logging in with one click.




Existing user? Just click login.

As part of its New Classics Readings Series, the Jean Cocteau Rep will present Alfred de Musset's Lorenzaccio on Monday, January 23rd at 7:00pm. The event is free. 

 This version of the play, translated and adapted by John Strand (Lovers and Executioners), premiered at The Shakespeare Theatre, Washington, DC, on January 24, 2005, directed by Michael Kahn and starred Jeffrey Carlson and Robert Cuccioli. Jeffrey Carlson will reprise the role in the Cocteau reading after much success in the original DC run.

"With the bold and broad Lorenzaccio, Alfred de Musset created a gripping tale of political intrigue, moral dilemmas and individual heroism. De Musset centers the play on the complex character of Lorenzo de Medici, friend and cousin to the notorious Alexander de Medici, Duke of Florence. At the price of his moral and physical integrity, Lorenzo allies himself to the duke in order to kill him, hoping to liberate Florence from the duke's tyrannical rule," according to press notes. Seth Duerr will direct the show

The New Classics Reading Series is a program dedicated to producing readings of primarily new translations and adaptations of classic work, or new work that evokes classic themes, styles, or traditions.

Alfred de Musset was born in Paris in 1810 and died there in 1857. The period of his best writing, much like his life, was brief and marked by passion, intensity and a tendency toward self-destruction. From 1833 to 1837 he produced the poems, plays and the autobiographical novel that secure his place today in the crowded pantheon of great 19th century French writers. Nothing that he wrote before or after was of equal value. He continued to write plays for publication but not for performance, calling his dramas 'Armchair Theater.' He wrote them as a deliberate protest against the rigid theatrical conventions of his day. Erring consistently on the side of writerly self-indulgence, the young wounded ego quickly made his point, if not his mark. It would be 17 years before his plays got on stage in Paris. He obediently rewrote them for the occasion, adding convention where requested. The exception was Lorenzaccio, written in 1833 and never staged in his lifetime.

"Whatever else can be said of Musset's theatrical presumptions, he showed good taste in being a professed admirer of Shakespeare and Schiller. His Lorenzaccio, often referred to as 'the French Hamlet,' was his homage to Elizabethan theater, as well as a semi-confessional treatise on youthful despair in France under the reign of Louis-Philippe. But aside from such footnotes, Lorenzaccio is a bold, sprawling, magnificent piece of theater. It is unlike anything else written by a French dramatist of the time. Despite its flaws (and they are numerous), at the center of the play is a gripping story of a complex, heroic character bent on political assassination. It is without question the finest thing Musset produced for the stage," wrties Strand in his notes.


Jean Cocteau Repertory, an Actors Equity off-Broadway company, at the Bouwerie Lane Theatre (330 Bowery at Bond Street) has presented over 300 productions. "This season we celebrate 35 years of taking a leading role in bringing masterworks and neglected classics alike to new life, with new, often exclusively commissioned translations, new adaptations and visionary interpretations" Audiences benefit from pre-show discussions and post-show symposiums. For Mother Courage the Cocteau partnered with Amnesty International in their campaign to stop violence against women in conflict zones. The Cocteau Access Project brings the classics into schools and New York students to the classics. Notable Cocteau productions include Brecht, Weill and Blitzstein's The Threepenny Opera, Tom Stoppard's Night and Day, Tennessee Williams's Small Craft Warnings, and Beaumarchais' The Marriage of Figaro as well as the past season's productions of Shaw's Pygmalion and Genet's The Maids.

Upcoming readings in the New Classics series will include Jordan Harrison's Kid Simple (Feb. 20th at 7 PM), Blair Singers's The American Fiancee (directed by Tyler Marchant, presented March 13th at 7 PM), and Sophocles' Antigone (translated by Nicholas Rudall, directed by Will Frears, presented April 10th at 7 PM).

 For tickets and reservations, call Michael Cyril Creighton, Audience Services Manager, at 212.677.0060 x16. Visit www.jeancocteaurep.org for more information.



Videos