STAGE TUBE: Jesse Eisenberg Chats His Play THE REVISIONIST at The Wallis

In its first production following a hit Off-Broadway run, Jesse Eisenberg's THE REVISIONIST is receiving its West Coast debut at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in a new production directed by Robin Larsen. Leading the cast is Tony Award-winning star of August: Osage County Deanna Dunagan, Seamus Mulcahy and Ilia Volok. Previews began in the Lovelace Studio Theater on Tuesday, March 29. Opening Night is this Friday, April 1. Click below to hear what Eisenberg had to say about his play!

THE REVISIONIST, Eisenberg's second full-length play, is a dramatic exploration of obsession, secrets, and the complexities of family. Young author David (Mulcahy) travels to Poland to help overcome his crippling case of writer's block. Although seeking solace, his elderly second cousin Maria (Dunagan) welcomes him with an overwhelming need to connect to her American relatives. As their relationship develops, she reveals details about her postwar past that test their ideas of what it means to be a family.

Overdue in delivering revisions of his new novel and distracted by city life, David plops himself in a cramped apartment in Szczecin, Poland, the home of a distant cousin named Maria. She is a complicated and indomitable figure -- a Holocaust survivor who maintains a kind of shrine in her home to her far-off American relatives, many of whom she has met only once or twice. It's a clash of cultures and generations as their divergent agendas, combined with cultural and culinary differences, lead to a spiky, combative relationship that ultimately questions their ideas of family.

THE REVISIONIST is the second play by the award-winning actor and regular The New Yorker contributor Jesse Eisenberg. The play had its world premiere at the Cherry Lane Theatre in New York in spring 2013, starring Jesse Eisenberg and Vanessa Redgrave and directed by Kip Fagan.

For tickets and more information, visit TheWallis.org.

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