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Event
The Gnadiges Fraulein by Tennessee Williams
The Gnadiges Fraulein (Gracious Lady) takes place in ficticious Cocaloony Key, "the Southern-most Island off the Southern-most tip of the Disunited Mistakes." Williams coined Gnadiges a slapstick tragedy, akin to vaudeville, burlesque and slapstick with a dash of pop art thrown in. Surreal, in the spirit of an animated cartoon, many scholars have suggested it represents a trend in Tennessee Williams later years toward the absurdist theatre of Beckett and Ionesco. An allegory of human folly, suffering, and endurance that is at once deeply tragic and profoundly comic.
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The Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium, whose mission is to present absurdist theater to audiences in the Philadelphia region, will present Tennessee Williamsâ âSlapstick Tragedyâ The Gnadiges Fraulein, beginning preview performances on Wednesday, March 17 and opening Friday, March 19, running through Saturday, April 3, 2010 at Second Stage at the Adrienne Theater. Curtain will be 7:30 pm for all shows.
The Gnadiges Fraulein (Gracious Lady) is a rarely-performed work first published in 1965 in Esquire magazine. Set in Cocalooney Key, the âSouthern-most Island off the Southern-most tip of the Disunited Mistakes,â Williams coined Gnadiges a Slapstick Tragedy, âakin to vaudeville, burlesque, and slapstick with a dash of pop art thrown in.â Surreal, in the spirit of an animated cartoon, many scholars have suggested it represents a trend in Tennessee Williamsâ later years toward the absurdist theatre of Beckett and Ionesco. This tragic-comic confection features a giant pelican, a drunken fisherman, a Hollywood Indian, two female clowns and a tragic ex-Vaudevillian soubrette in an allegory of human folly, suffering, and endurance that is at once deeply tragic and profoundly comic.
The Gnadiges Fraulein will feature Leah Walton, Kelly Vrooman, Jane Moore, John DâAlonzo, Lee Pucklis and Bob Schmidt. IRC Artistic Director Tina Brock will direct. The designers on Gnadiges include: Lisi Stoessel, set design; Joshua Schulman, lighting design, and Brian Stratchan, costume design.
The Gnadiges Fraulein opened in New York in 1966 and promptly alienated audience and critics alike. It closed after seven performances, despite the efforts of three brilliant performers, Zoe Caldwell, Margaret Leighton, and Kate Reid. Reviews described it as âstrangely unwholesome,â âa graveside rite for a dying art,â and âa disaster.â One compared it to the performance of an aging soprano, and announced that Williams had broken completely with the world of reality. But, as Williams scholar Philip C. Kolin emphasizes at the start of his essay collection The Undiscovered Country: The Later Plays of Tennessee Williams,â The post-Night of the Iguana (1961) canon still remains largely undiscovered country, elusively difficult to edit, classify, and interpretâ. Until very recently, critics and producers alike have avoided these unconventional works. And in The Gnadiges Fraulein: Tennessee Williamsâ Clown Show, essayist Allean Hale observes that this play is âperhaps the most unusual and most difficultâ of his many later dramas. She concludes that the play is not absurdist (as critics have suggested) but existentialist: âIt reminds us of Brechtâs Mother Courage, eternally pulling her wagon, or Camusâ Sisyphus, daily pushing his rock up the hill even though he knows it will roll down again.â
The Gnadiges Fraulein will be the IRCâs tenth production since the companyâs formation in 2006. The company celebrated the 100th anniversary in 2009 of Eugene Ionescoâs birth by staging well-received productions of his classic plays The Lesson and The Chairs, and has been gaining critical attention by tackling difficult and rarely-produced works by fellow authors Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter and Christopher Durang.
The Gnadiges Fraulein will have two preview performances on Wednesday, March 17 and Thursday, March 18 and will open Friday, March 19 at 7:30 pm, running Wednesdays through Sundays at 7:30 pm through Saturday, April 3, 2010 at Second Stage at The Adrienne, 2030 Sansom Street in Philadelphia. Tickets are $20.00 and may be purchased by visiting the IRC website at www.idiopathicridiculopathyconsortium.org or by calling 215.285.0472.
More for more information and photos on The Gnadiges Fraulein please contact Tina Brock at 215.285.0472. The IRC is a 501C3 non-profit organization, and a member of the Theatre Alliance of Greater Philadelphia and The Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance; the IRC proudly participates in the Barrymore Awards for Excellence in Theatre, a program of the Theatre Alliance of Greater Philadelphia.
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LocationSecond Stage at The Adrienne
2030 Sansom Street
Philadelphia, PA 19103
United States
Categories
| Kid Friendly: No |
| Dog Friendly: No |
| Non-Smoking: No |
| Wheelchair Accessible: No |
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