Commedia Beauregard Announce CORLEONE: The Shakespearean Godfather by David Mann for June 1-24
By: James T Harding May. 15, 2012
Commedia Beauregard, a Chicago-based theater company dedicated to producing plays in translation, turned the concept of translation on its head this year with the audience favorite production of Bard Fiction. Their upcoming summer show, Corleone: The Shakespearean Godfather continues their film-to-Shakespeare season and will be presented at the Greenhouse Theater Center from June 1-24, 2012.
Corleone takes Mario Puzo’s characters and asks, “What if Shakespeare had written The Godfather?” Would Michael have been a prince and Fredo a fool? David Mann’s play answers that question, exploding into a poetic bloodbath of Shakespearean proportions.
“Compared to Shakespeare's histories and tragedies, I think The Godfather is right in line with The Bard in terms of violence… .,” says Nathan Pease (Michael). “I love the overlapping themes used by both writers. Shakespeare is writing from the 1500's about destiny, vengeance, duty, betrayal, honor, and unrequited love. The characters we find in The Godfather live in a world where those ideas are at the forefront of their lives.”
The full cast are Jerome Marzullo – Vito; Nathan Pease – Michael; Richard Traub – Bonasera, Sollozzo, Clemenza; Duke Faeger – Luca Brasi, Vitellie, Barzini; Phillip Zimmerman – Fredo, Woltz, Tessio, McCluskey; Chris Lysy – Sonny, Moe Greene; Jovan King – Tom; Abby Stark – Kay; Christina Romano – Connie, Apollonia; and Jeremy Cohn – Johnny Fontaine.
Corleone was a hit at the New York and Minnesota Fringe Festivals and now Mann has expanded his iambic pentameter mob tale parody into a full evening of theatre for Chicago audiences.
The show opens June 1, 2012 and runs Thursdays @ 7:30 p.m., Fridays @ 7:30 p.m., Saturdays @ 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 2:30 p.m. at Greenhouse Theater Center , 2257 N Lincoln Ave (2 blocks south of Fullerton Ave), Chicago, IL 60614.
$25 tickets can be ordered in advance through www.cbtheatre.org, or by contacting the Greenhouse Theater Center box office at 773-404-7336
Thursday, May 31st is the Twitter Preview (“Show Your App Night”) Tickets are $10 or bring a web-enabled phone for a $5 ticket.
The mission of Commedia Beauregard involves producing works in translation. Recent productions include “A Klingon Christmas Carol” – the only full length play performed in tlhIngan Hol (the alien language created for Star Trek) , “Master Works: The Museum of Bad Art Plays” – translating from paintings to short plays, and “Bard Fiction” – the Shakespearean translation of Quentin Tarantino’s film, Pulp Fiction.
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