Harbor Stage Company Presents STICKS AND BONES, 8/15-9/8

Beginning August 15th, The Harbor Stage Company launches the third and final chapter of its critically acclaimed inaugural season with David Rabe's tragic farce Sticks and Bones. The production marks the Cape Cod premiere of the much lauded, rarely produced play, a searing dark comedy whose Broadway production earned the 1972 Tony Award for Best Play. The New York Times calls the play "a poet's vision of the disaster of moral bankruptcy."

A riotous and unflinching look at the haunting ravages of war, Sticks and Bones traces a Vietnam veteran's return to his boyhood home, and explores the traumatic effect of violent conflict on soldiers and their families. Helmed by Harbor Stage Company co-founder Lewis D. Wheeler, the production's cast includes Alex Pollock (Elliot Norton Award, Company One's The Aliens), Robert Murphy (Boston Playwrights Theatre, Underground Railway), Teddy Lytle (NY's Access Theater), and Harbor newcomer Caitlin Wilson as the enigmatic Zung. Harbor Stage Company Artistic Director Robert Kropf and co- founder Brenda Withers round out the cast as Ozzie and Harriet, Rabe's nod to the quintessential portrait of suburban domestic bliss.

Director Wheeler notes that Rabe, a Vietnam veteran himself, is exploring "the unspeakable difficulties that young veterans - many of them just kids out of high school - faced both on tours of duty and in trying to readjust to life back home. The play dives into this chaotic absurdity of re-entry - both tragic and hilarious - and seeks a deeper understanding of what 'coming home' was all about." David Rabe is one of the foremost writers of his generation (Hurlyburly, Goose and Tomtom). Sticks and Bones joins Rabe's loose quartet of 'Vietnam Plays,' including Streamers, The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel, and The Orphan. Rabe is also an acclaimed novelist (Girl by the Road at Night) and screenwriter.

Forty years after the New York debut of Sticks and Bones, another American generation finds itself navigating a post-war landscape, with large numbers of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan battling PTSD and seeking to reintegrate into life on the home front. To honor the service of local veterans, the Harbor Stage will offer a special performance of Sticks and Bones with free tickets for all veterans on Thursday, August 23 at 7:30pm. There will be a talk-back after the performance with the cast and director and members of local veteran's groups.

Elliot Norton Award-winning set designer Cristina Todesco (Commonwealth Shakespeare Company's Coriolanus, Huntington, Speakeasy), lighting designer Deb Sullivan (Public Theater in NY, Humana Festival, Elliot Norton Award), costume designer Daniel Kozar (Dean College), projection designer Bridget Doyle, and sound design consultant Richard Bock round out the creative team.

Sticks and Bones will be presented from August 15th to September 8th, running Wednesdays through Saturdays at 7:30PM at the Harbor Stage Company in Wellfleet (15 Kendrick Avenue, by the town pier). Tickets are priced at $20 and are available online at www.harborstage.org or via the Harbor Stage box office (508) 349-6800. The first Friday performance of Sticks and Bones (August 17) will be a "First Friday" Pay-What-You-Can performance.

 

 

 

 

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