POETIC JUSTICE Comes to The Marsh Berkeley in October

The Marsh Berkeley audiences will take a deep dive into the true lives of three distinguished writers with Lynne Kaufman’s Poetic Justice this fall. Starring Bay Area favorites Charles Shaw Robinson and Lorri Holt, this double bill features You Must Change Your Life and Divine Madness – one-act plays written by Kaufman and directed by Sheila Balter. 

Poetic Justice will play October 14 – November 5, 2023, with performances at 8:00pm Saturdays and 5:00pm Sundays at The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston Way, Berkeley. For information or to order tickets ($25-$35 sliding scale, $50 and $100 reserved), the public may visit themarsh.org. 

The evening begins with You Must Change Your Life, revealing the creation of Rainer Maria Rilke’s timeless masterpiece, Letters to a Young Poet. Torn between becoming a writer or an officer in the Austro-Hungarian Army, 19-year-old Franz Kappus writes a poem for Rilke in 1902, asking for feedback. A single letter turns into a series of correspondences. After Rilke’s death, Kappus compiles and publishes Rilke’s letters to him. But what about his letters to Rilke? A recent discovery provides a surprising answer. Divine Madness recounts the love story of poet Robert Lowell and writer Elizabeth Hardwick, who were famously divorced when Lowell, who suffered frequent debilitating bouts of manic depression, left Hardwick to marry an English heiress. He then documented the end of his marriage in a volume of poetry, The Dolphin, that scandalized the literary world and won him the Pulitzer Prize. Divine Madness follows the couple as they consider reuniting and invites audiences to explore the questions: Is art worth that much? Can love survive madness and betrayal? 

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