Caborca's HAMLET to Play Jersey City Theater Center This Month

Caborca will present HAMLET, a fiercely contemporary take on Shakespeare's most celebrated play directed by Javier Antonio González, January 26-29, at the Jersey City Theater Center (339 Newark Avenue, Jersey City, NJ), minutes from Manhattan.

Having presented work in New York, Massachusetts, Puerto Rico, and Los Angeles, this will be the first time Caborca brings its unique approach to experimental epic theatre to New Jersey.

The time is out of joint. It is bitter cold. Rank corruption festers at the center of power, indulging in excess while war looms on the horizon. Denmark is a prison, and for Hamlet there is no way out but through murder, suicide, or madness.

"Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go."

Hailing from Puerto Rico, US America and beyond, Caborca makes sprawling, adventurous works in theatre and film, combining epic auteurship with a tuned ensemble of actors and a flux of collaborators. Caborca has presented work in New York at Pregones, IATI, Magic Futurebox, and Repertorio Español, in L.A. at the Los Angeles Theatre Center, and has been in residence in Cambridge at the American Repertory Theater. Of their work and González's direction in Zoetrope, L.A. Weekly wrote, "The performers moved like dancers and the entire event contained the grace of a poem."

Actress Anne Gridley, who has been called a "dynamo" by the New York Times and an "an Imogene Coca-like genius" by the New Yorker will play the famous Dane, surrounded by much of Caborca's bilingual resident company and notable collaborators including Laura Butler Rivera (Jose Rivera's The Maids, INTAR), David Skeist (Old-Fashioned Prostitutes, Public Theater), Jon Froehlich (The Man Who Laughs, Stolen Chair), Tania Molina (Zoetrope, Pregones), Veraalba Santa (Sally Silvers's Bonobo Milkshake, Roulette/American Dance Institute), Michael Barringer (Solaris, Dangerous Ground), Jorge Luna (All the Beautiful Things official selection Sundance), Brooke Bell (Dancing Boobies Trilogy, Virago/CPR), and Pedro Leopoldo Sánchez Tormes (Zoetrope, Pregones). 

Javier Antonio González is the artistic director of Caborca and the author of original plays, adaptations, and screenplays in both English and Spanish. Part 1 of his bilingual epic romance Zoetrope is set for publication and his plays FLORIDITA, my Love; Open up, Hadrian; and Uneventful Deaths for Agathon have been published in print or online by New York Theatre Experience. Javier has been a member of The Public Theater's Emerging Writers Group, a Van Lier Directing Fellow, and an associate artist at Classic Stage Company. He has been called "one of our only playwrights actually working in the epic form," by Time Out New York theatre critic HeLen Shaw. The design team includes Caborca resident designers Jian Jung (set and costumes) and Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew (lighting and projections), who together have been recipients of the coveted Bel Geddes Design Enhancement Fund for their work on The Ludic Proxy. Mark Van Hare designs sound, Cristina Fitch designs costumes, and Will Chaloner is the Stage Manager.

Jersey City Theater Center's mission is to present innovative and progressive performing and visual arts as well as educational art programs which embrace the diverse identity and preserve the rich history of Jersey City, bringing its community closer together and enhancing its quality of life. JCTC programing encompasses theater, music, dance, film and multi-media.

Tickets to HAMLET are available at www.caborca.org and www.jctc.org. Tickets cost $32 or two for $40, Students/Seniors $15. Performances of HAMLET are: January 26 7:30pm; January 27 7:30pm; January 28 2pm* and 7:30pm; and January 29 4pm*. *Talk-back to follow performance. The running time is 2.5 hours with one 10-minute intermission. By PATH Train, take Newark or Journal Square bound train to Grove Street station. For more information, visit www.jctcenter.org.