TARTUFFE, MACBETH & More Set for A Noise Within's Spring 2014 Season
By: Tyler Peterson Jan. 15, 2014
A Noise Within, led by Producing Artistic Directors Geoff Elliott and Julia Rodriguez-Elliott, begins the second half of its 2013/2014 Season on February 15, 2014 with Tartuffe by Molière, Macbeth by William Shakespeare, and concluding with Come Back, Little Sheba by William Inge.
This season the plays are thematically tied by the tireless search to find that which has been lost. Julia Rodriguez Elliott said, "Much of life is about managing loss - and the search to find what we perceive we have lost: the longing for spent youth, the sadness for the unyielding search for a lost child. Sometimes it is re-discovery - the thrill of a romance, a self-deception of great entitlement, or finding a key to a locked mind. We've chosen these stories because they all explore values we find precious - love lost, love found, meaning lost and meaning found."
A fox is in the hen house; a rat is in the cellar; a snake is in the grass -- oh, Monsieur Tartuffe! The world's most famous Scoundrel's story, Tartuffe (1664) is comic genius Molière's tale of naiveté, religious hypocrisy, and the triumphant victory of good over evil-and all in 1,962 twelve-syllable lines of rhyming couplets! Like Xerox and Keds, the title character became an English and French noun - a "tartuffe" (tär?to?of) is a religious hypocrite, or a hypocritical pretender to excellence of any kind. And like many sharp plays, the French Roman Catholic Church, upper-class French society, and the French mafia -- were publically offended; but when the Archbishop of Paris issued an edict threatening excommunication for anyone who watched, performed - or even read the play - the run ended. But then the Archbishop didn't know anything about revivals!
Something Wicked This Way Comes! In a world rife with superstition and witchcraft, the Bard's insatiable Scottish couple leads us down a traitorous and blood-soaked road to the throne only to learn that power attained through murderous greed is enshrouded with the sleepless shriek of a guilty conscience. One of the most powerful character studies in all of literature, Macbeth (1606) loses everything that gives meaning and purpose to life before losing his life itself. This is the first time in twelve years that A Noise Within has presented Macbeth. Production is directed by Tony-nominated Larry Carpenter, who comes to A Noise Within as part of The Edgerton Foundation Fellowship at Occidental College. Sound Designer Cricket S. Myers received a Drama Desk Award and was nominated for a Tony for her work on Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo. Come Back, Little Sheba by William Inge (March 29 - May 17, 2014)
At a time when the pace of American life was not so rapid, a middle-aged couple, awash in what-ifs and drifting apart, takes in a young, vivacious college boarder, creating an explosive catalyst for change. Brooks Atkinson in the New York Times said, "Inge writes with a relentless frankness and compassion that are deeply affecting." Playwright William Inge knew the meaning of repression and loss. In 1947 he joined Alcoholics Anonymous, where he met "Lola," who became the basis of Come Back, Little Sheba (1950). Shirley Booth came to her greatest acclaim as an actress winning both the Tony Award and an Academy Award for Best Actress for this role. His other plays include Bus Stop, The Dark at the Top of the Stairs, and Picnic, which won him the Pulitzer Prize in 1953. In the early seventies, after becoming one of America's greatest and most known playwrights, Inge fell into a deep depression, having lost faith in his writing abilities, and committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning in 1973 at the age of 60. After half a century, Inge's contemporary masterpiece remains compelling and deeply resonate, as does the playwright himself, a closeted homosexual, whose final play The Last Pad (1972) featured an openly gay character.
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