La MaMa to Present New York Premiere of Witold Gombrowicz's THE MARRIAGE

La MaMa will present the New York premiere of Witold Gombrowicz’s The Marriage with direction by La MaMa’s director-in-residence Zishan Ugurlu. Written by one of the greatest Polish writers of the 20th century, The Marriage, translated by Louis Iribarne, is a play that explores themes of identity, power, and the nature of reality. Running September 26–October 6, 2024, performances take place at La MaMa’s Downstairs Theatre.

Witold Gombrowicz (1904–1969) was a Polish writer and playwright known for his innovative and often provocative works that explore the absurdity of human existence, most notably, the novel Ferdydurke. In his play The Marriage, we follow Henry, a young soldier who returns home from war to find his world in disarray. In a dream-like sequence, the boundaries between reality and illusion begin to blur.

“Gombrowicz’s writing combines philosophical depth with the wittiest sense of humor,” said director Zishan Ugurlu, a member of La MaMa’s Great Jones Repertory Company. “He is provocative, instructive, and grotesque. In The Marriage, Gombrowicz explores how language brings things into being, how utterance makes ideas material, and he asks who has the power to dictate reality and truth. In our production of the 1946 play, which has never before had a professional production in New York, ‘indecent acts’ and ‘deformations’ are explored in our hero’s dreamland. They reveal themselves through upside-down flags, Hoots fingers and Hooters Girls, a bloody insurrection and declarations when our hero, Henry, returns home from war but finds that nothing is as he remembered. Even as he grapples with questions of identity and the authentic self, Gombrowicz imbues Henry’s dream with fun and games, with poetry, terror, and struggle. The author is a tightrope walker–a provocateur–whose words are as valid today as they were almost 80 years ago.”

The nine-member ensemble cast for The Marriage includes Bill Bowers, Celeste Ciulla, Gardiner Comfort, Annie Hägg, Conor Andrew Hall, Anna Podolak, Alex Scoloveno, Jackson Scott, and Oluwaseun “Kayodè” Soyemi.

The creative team for The Marriage includes Michał Dracz (set and lighting design), Krystian Szymczak (costume design), Sam Sellers (sound design), Alexandra Chasin (dramaturgy), Shari Perkins (dramaturgy), Dakota Silvey (production stage manager), Tomek Smolarski (producer) and Małgorzata Potocka (producer).

Eight performances of The Marriage will take place September 26–October 6, 2024 at La MaMa’s Downstairs Theatre, located at 66 E 4th Street in Manhattan. Critics are welcome as of Thursday, September 26, which serves as the official opening. The performance schedule is Thursday through Saturday at 8pm and Sunday at 4pm. General admission tickets are $30 ($25 for students or seniors). The first 10 tickets to every performance are $10 each. Tickets are available at www.lamama.org.

Please visit www.lamama.org/shows/the-marriage-2024 for more information.

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