Event

Big Love

The vigorous tale of a group of 50 sisters fled from Greece to Italy to avoid forced marriage to their cousins. This startling adaptation is inspired by what some believe to be the earliest surviving play of the western world, Aeschylus's The Suppliant Women. It brings classical Greek tragedy bracingly into the present, weaving together a commentary on gender issues, societal pressures, and American entitlement. Classical drama collides with modern-day excess and the resulting theatrical wonder is alternately amusing and horrifying, slapstick and serious. Clothes get torn off, characters die in disastrous ways, Big Love is a unique, thought provoking, and exciting evening of theatre that The New York Times describes as "an MGM musical in Technicolor, a circus and, believe it, a Greek tragedy."

Asking us to look at how humans behave when we are facing imminent disaster, and what it is like to live in that heightened state all the time. It is a play filled with sensory excess, sensory overload: The music is beautiful but played too loudly; the clothes tuxedoes and wedding dresses are lovely, but torn to pieces and covered in various substances from blood to wedding cake. There are very tender, poignant moments, followed by action that is completely over the top: the beautiful and the ugly all wrapped up into one. It's messy and difficult, and it extends beyond just men and women fighting.