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Event
Into the Absurd: The American Dream by Edward Albee at L'Etage Cabaret
Absurd, abstract, intriguing, and seldom-performed describe the works taking center stage in a new script-in-hand reading series, "Into the Absurd: Readings and Conversation" presented by The Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium, the Philadelphia-based theater company whose mission is to present absurdist theater to audiences in the Philadelphia region.
Edward Albee's "The American Dream", described by Hungarian theater historian and scholar Martin Esslin as a "brilliant first example of an American contribution to the Theatre of the Absurd will kick off the series on Sunday, April 17 @ 7:30 pm at L'Etage Cabaret. IRC performers Andrew Carroll, Tina Brock, Jack Hoffman, Jane Moore and Kirsten Quinn will bring Albee's 1960 play to life. IRC Producing Artistic Director Tina Brock will direct. Admission is free. Seating is limited, tickets are suggested: americandream.bpt.me.
"Into the Absurd: Readings and Conversation" will be staged at the intimate 50-seat theater where the IRC first launched its inaugural production in 2006, "Three One Acts by Albee, Ionesco and Durang." In the 10 years since, the IRC has become recognized for humorous, accessible interpretations of classic absurdist works from Eastern Europe and around the globe. Into the Absurd was developed in response to audience requests for a script-in-hand reading series focusing on seldom-performed classic and modern works from this genre in a casual setting with opportunity for conversation and inquiry. Into the Absurd will take place quarterly at LEtage, the next reading is scheduled for June 2016.
In recent seasons, the IRC has produced critically-acclaimed, sold-out main stage productions of Eugène Ionesco's "Rhinoceros" and George Bernard Shaws "Misalliance" as well as the Philadelphia premiere of Eugène Ionesco's "Exit the King" for the 2015 Fringe Festival. Season 2016 will feature Ionesco's "The Chairs" (September 2016) and David Ives "The Lives of the Saints" (November 2016).
Martin Esslin is best known for his book "The Theatre of the Absurd" (1962), in which he coined the phrase of the title, which defines the work of playwrights whose plays share similar qualities: Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco, Jean Genet, and Harold Pinter among them. In an introduction to Absurd Drama (1965) Esslin writes, The Theatre of the Absurd attacks the comfortable certainties of religious or political orthodoxy. It aims to shock its audience out of complacency, to bring it face to face with the harsh facts of the human situation as these writers see it. But the challenge behind this message is anything but one of despair. It is a challenge to accept the human condition as it is, in all its mystery and absurdity, and to bear it with dignity, nobly, responsibly; precisely because there are no easy solutions to the mysteries of existence, because ultimately man is alone in a meaningless world. The shedding of easy solutions, of comforting illusions, may be painful, but it leaves behind it a sense of freedom and relief. And that is why, in the last resort, the Theatre of the Absurd does not provoke tears of despair but the laughter of liberation.
The IRC is a 501C3 non-profit organization, and a member of The Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance. The IRC's 2016 season is made possible in part by generous grants from Wyncote Foundation; The Samuel S. Fels Fund; The Philadelphia Cultural Fund; The Pennsylvania Partners in the Arts program of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency with support also provided by PECO and administered regionally by the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance; Arts & Business Council of Greater Philadelphia and The William Penn Foundation.
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LocationL'Etage Cabaret (View)
624 South 6th Street (above Beau Monde)
Philadelphia, PA 19147
United States
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