The Division of Theater’s 2016 - 2017 season will span from tragedy to farce as it explores topics from gun violence to the meaning of art.
The season will open with The Library, a drama that will call attention to violence in America through the story of a survivor of a deadly high school shooting. The Ladies Man will follow with farce, a genre characterized by absurd humor. Stupid F---kng Bird gives an Anton Chekhov classic a modern twist, and The Rover will portray the first English woman to make a living through writing.
Though the season will begin with a tragic drama, Dennis Delaney, director of the next play in the season, The Ladies Man, and an associate professor of theater directing, said there is room for a range of shows.
The Ladies Man will bring a modern adaptation of a French bedroom farce.
According to Delaney, the unusual thing about the play is that “it’s not about much at all.”
A bedroom farce typically focuses on men cheating on their wives, Delaney said. This one focuses on a man accused of the same, but in a humorous twist, the accusations are false.
“It’s kind of unusual in that way,” Delaney said. “It’s not about your typical scoundrel of a husband.”
This play's use of comedy will depart from the serious nature of the previous play, which Delaney said would provide an opportunity for “a lot of crazy antics.”
Stupid F---king Bird will get director David Haugen, an associate professor of performance, closer to his goal of directing a Checkov play.
As a modernization of the Russian playwright’s The Seagull, the play follows a young man’s attempt to find a new form of theater. The show includes an exploration of both art and relationships.
“It’s like a good Checkov play. It’s very funny. It’s very sad. It’s very universal as far as the humanity of the people,” Haugen said.
The play reflects Checkov’s fascination with unrequited love.
“Whoever one character is in love with, that character is always in love with someone else.”
But the play challenges Checkov in some ways. Checkov’s characters often “dance around the issues,” Haugen said.
Instead of keeping things hidden, Stupid F---king Bird reveals them. The characters go one step further by interacting with the audience. That interaction dissolves the fourth wall, an imaginary wall between a play’s characters and its audience. The breakdown will be thrilling for both the actors and the audience, Haugen said.
“We are looking at, what is theater?” Haugen said.
The play approaches the idea of how theater can change in the interest of a changing audience, Haugen said.
“We’ve all been uptight in … live theater for the last decade because of electronic devices. I think in the theater we can go, ‘oh, damn it, turn off your phones, you bad people,’ but that is the reality. That is our audience. So maybe we’re not engaging them,” he said. “What are we going to see that is actually going to touch people today?”
