Edward Albee Plays

IDYLLWILD: 'Our Town' coming to stage

"Our Town" by Thornton Wilder will be the first main-stage production for Isis Theatre Company's ninth season, running July 8-10 at The Caine Learning Center in Idyllwild.

Described by playwright Edward Albee as "the greatest American play ever written," the story follows the small town of Grover's Corners through three acts: "Daily Life," "Love and Marriage" and "Death and Eternity."

Narrated by a stage manager and performed with minimal props and sets, the play follows the Webb and Gibbs families as their children fall in love, marry and eventually -- in one of the most famous scenes in American theater -- die.

Starring Susan Hegarty as the stage manager, the production features both seasoned actors and Idyllwild residents to represent the folks of Grover's Corners. The cast includes Howard Shangraw, Suzanne Avalon, Marshall Smith, Chris Morse, Gemini Anderson, Jeri Greene, Jim Crandall, Duane Minard, Ana Lia Lenchantin, Chris Murphy, Zora Schoner and Chad Jones.

Performances begin at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Saturday and Sunday, with a reception prior to curtain at 7. The Caine Learning Center is at 54385 Pine Crest Ave., Idyllwild.

General admission tickets cost $18, or $15 for seniors and students. Tickets may be purchased at the door or online at www.isistheatrecompany.com.

Information: 951-692-9553.

Submitted by the Isis Theatre Company.

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UStheater: Douglas Messerli "Between You and Me" (on Edward ...

The world premiere of the new play at the Berlind Theatre at Princeton University, a production directed by Emily Mann, confronts the audience during the first scene with an architectural perspective (the set is outlined with a rectangular of strings) of a bedroom, featuring only a double bed, inhabited by Mother (Tyne Daly) and her Dr. (the hilarious Brian Murray)—a man who for the past 28 years has replaced her missing husband (he has disappeared upon the announcement that he was the father of identical twins)—sleeping, dressed still in suit and shoes. With the sudden appearance of one of the twins, OTTO, we quickly discover the depths of her lunacy as her son and Dr. recount her reactions to the news of the twin births and her illogical logical actions of naming them both (they are, after all spitting images of each other) Otto—one whose name reads left to right, the other right to left, and one whose name is capitalized, the other all in lower case! The two dress alike, and although she perceives that one (the loud and evil OTTO) does not love her while the other otto (the softer spoken good otto) is a devoted son, even she cannot tell them apart! We later discover that she cannot remember which of her Ottos was born first; she has, she declares, lost the papers!. So has Albee exaggerated the dilemmas of all identical twins, two beings so alike that, like many twins, they speak a kind of private language and—employing the lurid fascination of gay (and heterosexual) pornography—even share some in some sexual delights. These brothers, however, emphatically declare they are “straight”—or perhaps, to employ the malapropism of OTTO (“We’re straight as a gate”), “strait,” very narrow in their perspectives. Both brothers dislike their mother’s Dr., and OTTO warns him that he should leave, since their father will soon be home accompanied by six panthers and a load of emeralds with which he had promised to “bathe” their mother (the Dr. sardonically suggests the husband may have said “pave”). OTTO also announces that he is going to become Chinese and that otto is no longer his brother, that he has a new brother. Any family might be nonplussed by these strange pronouncements, but Mother and Dr. are not just any family. Mother is, as the Dr. suggests, utterly demented, insane as the Dr.

The goat, or, Who is Sylvia?, (notes toward a definition of tragedy)

The Plays

A delicate balance, a play in three acts

Plays

Edward Albee's The play about the baby