Following a successful run in Los Angeles, performer and writer Christopher Vened takes his one-man show Human Identity on the road. He brings his show to EXIT Stage Left in San Francisco this weekend, March 27 and 28 at 8:00pm.
This inventive, funny and eye-opening piece of theater is nothing less than a quest to discover the meaning of human identity. What does it mean to be human? Who am I? Christopher Vened explores the essential predicament of being alive without the sure knowledge of who we are and how we were created. His relentless pursuit for answers often turns to the absurd. What cannot be explained in words is illustrated in mime. In Human Identity, Vened combines words and physical action in a unique theatrical formula that finds new means of expression and insight. "Vened's skill as a mime enables him to intricately reveal the complex physical organization that makes us human and how it transcends all other life forms on Earth," praised reviewer Julio Martinez in Arts in LA.
Vened premiered Human Identity at The Lounge Theatres in Hollywood on January 5, 2014 as a work in progress. However, the show was already in good enough shape to present to a paying audience and invite reviewers. Attracted by the subject matter they came-and the show created a great stir. Vened received enthusiastic responses from his audiences and some quite good reviews. It encouraged him to go on with it. So he polished up both his script and performance, and now he takes Human Identity on tour. So far he performed in Portland, Los Angeles, New York, and Seattle. He participated in The 5th United Solo International Theatre Festival in New York in September and in SoloFest 2015 in Los Angeles in February. He is thrilled to perform in San Francisco, a great theater town and center.
Christopher Vened embraces the formula of monodrama theatre because it invites freedom of individual expression with no limits. To stand alone on front of the audience and express oneself is something liberating, there is no other authority but "I." Well, it is, of course, easy to make a fool of one-self. So, one better have a good script, staging, and rehearsed it well to deserve to be there, on the stage. The audience is hungry for revelations, or at least entertainment. The performer has to deliver it. And that requires skills, talent, and to have something to say and/or show, a message they are awaiting for. Christopher Vened is aware of this responsibility. In his one-man show Human Identity he hopes to stir people's minds, he wants the audience to get excited by the ideas in the show, to take those ideas home with them and discuss them, talk about them for many days to come, so to speak, to go on their own quest for human identity. The show runs 90 minutes; there is an intermission.
For more information and tickets please go to brownpapertickets.com
Christopher Vened was born in Poland. He was an actor-mime in the Wroclaw Pantomime Theatre. He was awarded the Brown Spire for the best performance for the dual role of Guest-Dionysus in the production of Arriving Tomorrow. In the end of 1981, he defected to the West while on tour with the company in Germany because martial law was declared in Poland. He was the founder and director of Impulse-Movement Theatre in West Berlin and Drama Studio in Seattle. In 1985, he was awarded a Drama-Logue Award for best choreography for his work in the production of A Voyage to Arcturus at the Odyssey Theater. He has choreographed and directed shows and taught acting in various studios, universities, and theaters in the United States. He is the author of the acting book In Character: An Actor's Workbook for Character Development.
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