TFANA Launches 2017-18 Season with Physical Theater Double-Bill

Theatre for a New Audience (TFANA; Jeffrey Horowitz, Founding Artistic Director) begins its 2017-18 season with Marcel + The Art of Laughter, a double bill of comic one-acts featuring renowned physical theatre artists Jos Houben and Marcello Magni, whom the Guardian has deemed "two of contemporary theatre's greatest clowns."

Horowitz says, "There can be nothing new without an understanding of tradition. The art of Jos and Marcello is rooted in a deep knowledge of the traditions of comedy, clowning, gags, vaudeville, and slapstick, which are as relevant to playing Shakespeare as they are to contemporary authors. Language exists in the body as well as the mind. Jos and Marcello are as physically eloquent with their bodies as great writers are with spoken words."

Jos Houben and Marcello Magni count among their influences Morcambe and Wise, and Carlo and Alberto Colombaioni. Houben, who is Belgian, and Magni, who is Italian, first met in the 1970s, when they and Simon McBurney studied physical theatre at the famed L'École Internationale de Théâtre, with its founder Jacques Lecoq. At the end of their training, McBurney invited Magni and Houben to London, and. in 1983, Magni, McBurney, and Anabelle Arden founded the pioneering physical theatre company Theatre de Complicité, (now known as Complicite).

In 2013, The London Times described Complicite as"the most influential and consistently interesting theatre company working in Britain." Houben was an original member of Complicite, as was Kathryn Hunter, who is now married to Magni.

While Marcel and The Art of Laughter have been presented individually to acclaim, TFANA is the first theatre to pair them. Seeing the two one-acts together offers an opportunity not just to experience the mastery and chemistry Houben and Magni have developed over more than four decades, but also to appreciate how these artists understand theatre traditions and the humanity and vulnerability underpinning comedy.

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C.I.C.T. / Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord
MARCEL (U.S. PREMIERE)
Created by and Featuring Jos Houben and Marcello Magni
Co-production: TANDEM - Scène Nationale

Marcel, first performed at the famed Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord (the Paris home of Peter Brook) in 2015, sees Houben and Magni expressing human mortality underpinning physical humor. They are meticulously attuned to one another's styles and amusingly opposite statures, and are able, as Le Monde glows, "to put audiences in trances of uncontrollable, liberating laughter."

But the very thing Magni and Houben explore here is the antithesis of liberation. They are exploring Time with a capital "T." Its story is based on how we all are imprisoned within our bodies that-no matter how agile, no matter how many invisible staircases it can climb-cannot escape time. The framework for the comedy, and for its underlying melancholy, is Magni playing the eponymous character, an aging physical comedian, while Houben is his inscrutable, clipboard-wielding bureaucratic nemesis, mysteriously appointed to test him with a battery of absurd tasks. If Marcel accomplishes them, he gets to renew his license as a clown. When you're a performer whose identity relies on voluntarily conjuring laughter with your body, what happens when time usurps your control of it?

Marcel features scenic and costume design by Oria Puppo, and lighting design by Philippe Vialatte. Paul Vella is the production stage manager.

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THE ART OF LAUGHTER
Created by and Featuring Jos Houben
Production: C.I.C.T. / Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord and Compagnie Rima

Houben's The Art of Laughter, a comedy about comedy-part performance and part a kind of theatrical master class exploring what makes people laugh-follows Marcel after an intermission. Given the first-time pairing of these two pieces, The Art of Laughter will not only speak to the nature of comedy, but also, by association, to the humor of Marcel. Houben performs in English, dissecting everyday life-a baby's first steps, a man falling in a restaurant, the essence of various cheeses-revealing why laughter is at the core of our humanity.

"Houben is so convincing with his forensics, so pinpoint-accurate with his body, you might imagine laughter dying from dissection," noted a Guardian review of an early performance, in 2008. "But he happily admits to only knowing about the 'how and when.' Demonstrating what he thinks a piece of processed cheese would look like as a human being, he can't tell you exactly why you are laughing. But he can guarantee you will."

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Performances of Marcel + The Art of Laughter will take place October 27-29, November 1-3, 7-10 and 14-17 at 7:30pm; October 30 at 7pm; and November 4 & 5, 11 & 12, and 18 & 19 at 2pm at Polonsky Shakespeare Center, TFANA's state-of-the-art home in the Brooklyn Cultural District.

Tickets are $90-100 (with a limited number of premium seats available at $125 each) and are on sale to the public at www.tfana.org, 866.811.4111 and the Polonsky Shakespeare Center box office. New Deal tickets-for those aged 30 and under, and for full-time students of any age-are available for all performances for $20, and can be purchased online, by phone or at the box office, in advance or day-of, with valid ID(s) required at pickup.

Marcel + The Art of Laughter runs approximately two hours and fifteen minutes, including one intermission. The Polonsky Shakespeare Center is located at 262 Ashland Place, Brooklyn, NY 11217.

COMPANION PROGRAMMING:

TFANA Talks, free post-show conversations with artists and scholars, will take place after the Saturday matinee performances on November 4 and November 11.

After the 7:30pm performance on Sunday, October 29, TFANA will host one of its popular Post-Show Parties. Every ticket purchased for that evening includes a drink ticket for use at the party.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

Jos Houben is a native Belgian. He studied at Jacques Lecoq School and with Philippe Gaulier, Monika Pagneux and Pierre Byland. An original member of Complicité, he co-created and performed in A Minute Too Late and collaborated on many other projects with Annabel Arden, Simon McBurney and Liso Bauer. Houben was a director and co-writer of the cult comedy troupe The Right Size. He has directed for Theater YBY in Salzburg, BPZoom in Paris and Les Flamiches Noires in Belgium. In 2006 he performed with Marcello Magni in Fragments, directed by Peter Brook at Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord and on a world tour, including performances in New York as part of Theatre for a New Audience's 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 seasons. In 2013 he co-created Répertoire by Mauricio Kagel for the Théâtre d'Arras and the Bouffes du Nord. He is a teacher, director, devisor and consultant with comedy troupes, opera companies, circus schools, workshop festivals, dance schools, universities and magicians worldwide. Since 2000 he has been a teacher at Jacques Lecoq School.

Marcello Magni, a native of Bergamo, Italy, is an actor, director and movement director. He studied at DAMS of Bologna University, Jacques Lecoq School, and with Pierre Byland, Philippe Gaulier and Monica Pagneux. A co-founder of Complicité in London he has worked with the company for twenty-four years. He also created a solo show, Arlecchino, with Jos Houben and Kathryn Hunter. Furthermore, Magni performed in The Merchant of Venice, Comedy of Errors, and Pericles at Shakespeare's Globe. In 2006 he performed with Jos Houben in Fragments, directed by Peter Brook at Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord and on a world tour, including performances in New York as part of Theatre for a New Audience's 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 seasons. Magni also performed in The Valley of Astonishment, by Peter Brook and Marie-Hélène Estienne, created at Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord in April 2014 and presented in New York by Theatre for a New Audience that same year. His film credits include Nine, The Adventures of Pinocchio, Doctor Who and Mr. Turner.

Founded in 1979 by Jeffrey Horowitz, Theatre for a New Audience (TFANA) is a modern classic theatre. It produces Shakespeare alongside other major authors from the world repertoire, such as Harley Granville Barker, Edward Bond, Adrienne Kennedy, Richard Nelson, Wallace Shawn and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. TFANA has played Off- and on Broadway and toured nationally and internationally.

In 2001, Theatre for a New Audience became the first American theatre invited to bring a production of Shakespeare to the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), Stratford-upon-Avon. Cymbeline, directed by Bartlett Sher, premiered at the RSC; in 2007, TFANA was invited to return to the RSC with The Merchant of Venice, directed by Darko Tresnjak and starring F. Murray Abraham. In 2011, Mr. Abraham reprised his role as Shylock for a national tour.

After 34 years of being itinerant and playing mostly in Manhattan, Theatre for a New Audience moved to Brooklyn and opened its first permanent home, Polonsky Shakespeare Center, in October 2013. Built by The City of New York in partnership with Theatre for a New Audience, and located in the Brooklyn Cultural District, Polonsky Shakespeare Center was designed by Hugh Hardy and H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture with theatre consultants Akustiks, Milton Glaser, Jean-Guy Lecat, and Theatre Projects. Housed inside the building are the Samuel H. Scripps Mainstage (299 seats)-the first stage built for Shakespeare and classical drama in New York City since Lincoln Center's 1965 Vivian Beaumont-and the Theodore C. Rogers Studio (50 seats).

TFANA's productions have been honored with Tony, Obie, Drama Desk, Drama League, Callaway, Lortel and Audelco awards and nominations and reach an audience diverse in age, economics and cultural background.

Theatre for a New Audience created and runs the largest in-depth program in the New York City Public Schools to introduce students to Shakespeare, and has served over 130,000 students since the program began in 1984. TFANA's New Deal ticket program is one of the lowest reserved ticket prices for youth in the city: $20 for any show, any time for those 30 years old and under or for full-time students of any age.

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