Beyond the Proscenium Productions
How often is it that Sacramento audiences can see work that has wowed audiences in Amsterdam? Zero would be the answer, until January 5th when Beyond the Proscenium Productions (BPP) opens MedEia by Oscar van Woensel, in cooperation with Manja Topper and Kuno Bakker, of the Dood Paard Theatre Company of Amsterdam.
Jennifer Ly, Jennifer Fong and Shanda Freih
This most modern version of the Greek masterpiece Medea is a multi-media movement take on the classic. The text is rich with illusions to philosophy and literature as well as the world of pop songs. Maybe you don’t think of MedEia as a pop kind of play, but consider its' themes: love, adultery, jealousy and revenge. Is there anything else more modern and still with us than those emotions?
BPP Artistic Director Nick Avdienko is now working with the 13-member cast who are also members of the Sacramento Theatre Experiment, focused on Viewpoints work.
| The Viewpoints is a technique of improvisation that grew out of the postmodern dance world. It was first articulated by choreographer Mary Overlie, who broke down the two dominant issues performers deal with - space and time - into six categories. Since that time, directors Anne Bogart and Tina Landau have expanded her notions and adapted them for actors to function together spontaneously and intuitively and to generate bold, theatrical work. |
Justin Munoz and Michelle Avdienko |
The Viewpoints are a set of names given to certain principles of movement through time and space - they constitute a language for talking about what happens on stage. Coupling this with Composition, which is the practice of selecting and arranging the separate components of theatrical language into a cohesive work of art, provides theatre artists with an important new tool for creating and understanding their art form.
BPP premiered this kind of imagestic storytelling with last season’s Dreams and Diatribes Redux in June at California Stage. Right now the actors are using physical improvisation to explore the text. This work will be used by Avdienko to “set” the composition for the piece. It’s a different way of telling a story from a very physical standpoint.
If you’ve never seen any of this kind of work, you really should mark your calendars to come out and see MedEia. It opens on January 5th with an opening night party with the actors (tickets are $25 and include finger- food and beverages).
MedEia continues Thursday, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 pm from January 6 to February 3, 2006, at The Space, 2509 R St. There will NOT be a show on Saturday, January 13th. Two Sunday matinees are scheduled for January 28th and February 4th at 2 pm. Tickets are $15 general and $12 for seniors, students, SARTA & TBA members. To reserve tickets please call 916-456-1600 or email nick.princess@gmail.com. More information can be found at Beyond-Pro.org.
Why no show on January 13th? Because this is the night of our 3rd Annual Benefit Gala featuring CH 3’s Edie Lambert as emcee, a silent auction of fine art, a raffle featuring one roundtrip ticket on the airline of your choice to anywhere in the Western US, 3 days/2 nights at the Reno Peppermill, spa services, gift certificates to Midtown restaurants and boutiques and more!
Mike Heller of Heller Company and Heller Pacific is generously donating space at his new MARRS building, 1050 20th St., in Sacramento, for what will be THE arts party of the year.
We will also feature a special concert by two members of the Counting Crows: Jim Bogios (drums Counting Crows, Sheryl Crow, Ben Folds) and David Immergluck (guitar-Counting Crows, John Hiatt), who have joined with Dan Eisenberg (keyboards-Ryan Adams, Jonathan Richman) and Yoshi Sako (bass-Beatropolis, Syncrosystem) to form a group called Glider.
They last played the Blue Lamp in Sacramento this past March. The band plays its own unique style mixing many musical influences that span the globe.... from the Middle Eastern deserts to the bustling downtown Italian streets, through the California waves and beyond.
Kim Brauer and Justin Munoz
In March, BPP will present Symphony of Rats by Richard Foreman (NY Obie-award winner), directed by Nick Avdienko, at California Stage, 2519 25th St. (corner of 25th & R Sts.), Sacramento. This will be the first time that Foreman’s work will be presented in the Sacramento area.
Foreman is the founder and artistic director of the non-profit Ontological-Hysteric Theater (1968-present). Since the early seventies, his work and company have been funded by the NEA, NYSCA, as well as many other foundations and private individuals. In the early 1980s a branch of the theater was established in Paris and funded by the French government. He has written, directed and designed over fifty of his own plays both in New York City and abroad. Five of his plays have received OBIE awards as best play of the year - and he has received five other OBIEs for directing and for "sustained achievement." He has received the annual Literature award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, a "Lifetime Achievement in the Theater" award from the National Endowment for the Arts, the PEN Club Master American Dramatist Award, a MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship, and in 2004, was elected officer of the Order of Arts and Letters of France. His archives and work materials have recently been acquired by the Bobst Library at NYU.
In Symphony of Rats, The President of the United States is receiving messages from other worlds. Perhaps they are the voices of Angels, bringing a Divine message. Perhaps they are the voices of aliens, bringing warnings from other worlds or other dimensions. Or maybe, just maybe, the President is merely going mad. In any case, the leader of the free world is beginning to hate that world, and may be deciding to put an end to it once and for all. More and more, everybody else in the world looks like nothing more or less than a rat to the President, and it’s time to exterminate. |
