A HUNGER ARTIST Comes to HartBeat Ensemble

HartBeat Ensemble kicks off the New Year with the regional premiere of A Hunger Artist, adapted from Franz Kafka's short story by the award-winning theater company Sinking Ship Productions, based in Brooklyn, N.Y.

The one-man show, which incorporates puppetry, light and shadow, was created by writer Josh Luxenberg, performer Jonathan Levin and director Joshua William Gelb. A Hunger Artist runs at HartBeat's Carriage House Theater, 360 Farmington Ave., from Feb. 1-4.

"I have been aware and impressed by the work of Joshua William Gelb, ever since we met in 2012 at the Lincoln Center Directors Lab and HartBeat Ensemble is overjoyed to present the regional premier of A Hunger Artist," says Steven Raider Ginsburg, HartBeat Ensemble Interim Artistic Director.

A Hunger Artist makes its New England premiere after acclaimed and award-winning runs in New York City and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and runs this weekend in Baltimore at the Theatre Project. It was ranked as one of the best-reviewed shows of the Fringe festival (according to List Magazine) and won Summerhall's Lustrum Award for Excellence.

The show starts with a man sitting alone in a cage, starving himself for your entertainment. Once cheered by thousands, the Hunger Artist is now forgotten by everyone except his one-time manager. What begins as a simple nostalgic story transforms into a startlingly inventive, darkly comic trip into the nature of memory, art, performance and spectatorship, as told by the only person who remembers an artist whose act was simply...to hunger.

Using puppetry, Victorian miniatures and audience participation, A Hunger Artist draws theater-goers into a carnival world that unfolds magically on stage. "It's a dark tale, but there's lots of humor, which is something we really bring out in the production," Levin says. "We make it very fresh and physical, with lots of surprises."

A Hunger Artist is one of the few stories that Kafka did not order burned after his death. Kafka was still editing the piece when he succumbed to tuberculosis in 1924. Because the disease caused his throat to close, Kafka died of starvation while he was working on it.

Although never explicitly addressed in the story or the play, there is a disquieting sense that the forces, frailties and fascinations Kafka exposed in 1922 were linked to the rise of fascism back then and are reminiscent of far-right populism today.

HartBeat presents A Hunger Artist at the Carriage House Theater, 360 Farmington Ave., Hartford, from Thur., Feb. 1 through Sunday, Feb. 4. Shows are at 7:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m.. Tickets are $25 general admission, $20 seniors and Let's Go! Arts members and $15 students. For tickets, visit hartbeatenemble.org or call 860 548-9144.

Sinking Ship Productions is the creative collaboration between Jonathan Levin and Josh Luxenberg, who work with a core group of associate artists, combining physical theater, puppetry, music and movement in strange and unexpected ways.

Their productions have grappled with such concepts as the creation and destruction of the universe, how a man's search for connection could ultimately lead to complete isolation and the limits of human understanding. Previous productions include There Will Come Soft Rains (FringeNYC, Barrow St. Theater) and Powerhouse (New Ohio Theater), both of which played to sold out houses, critical acclaim and extended runs in New York City.

Founded in 2001 by Steven Raider-Ginsburg, Julia B. Rosenblatt and Gregory R. Tate (1952- 2012), HartBeat Ensemble creates provocative theater that connects our community beyond traditional barriers of class, race, geography and gender. HartBeat's resident home is the Carriage House Theater, 360 Farmington Ave., Hartford.

HartBeat's new works include the acclaimed Jimmy & Lorraine (written by Talvin Wilkes in collaboration with HartBeat's Brian Jennings), Gross Domestic Product (written by co-founder Julia Rosenblatt), and holiday favorite Ebeneeza (written by Julia Rosenblatt and the late Greg Tate). In addition to presenting its own new work and exceptional theater from other companies, HartBeat also runs the Youth Play Institute, a paid theater-based jobs program for youth 16-21, and presents theater-based education programs in schools and employs forum theater to work with community residents to identify quality of life issues and broker connections to achieve desired change.

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