Event

Madame Gufay's Free Speech Lovelutionaries

Growing up in the French provinces, Madame Gufay was fascinated by news reports of the Free Speech Movement (the FSM) which fermented on the campus of U.C. Berkeley and resonated worldwide. Now, having returned to school late in life, she has arranged to finish her last semester studying at her own personal mecca, U.C. Berkeley. Madame Gufay is a force of nature, and her wacky, goofy efforts to experience Free Speech in the present day involve most campus life: the administration and academics, the classroom, the library, Sproul Plaza demonstrations and, of course graduation.

Madame Gufay overcomes language challenges, academic arrogance, uncontrollable urges, public drunkenness, lewd and lascivious behavior, to the fulfillment of innocent wacky, goofy dreams. To be sure, Madame Gufay and her activist Lovelutionaries do care passionately about social justice and they advocate for world peace, justice, not to mention lowering tuition for public universities! Madame Gufay's character is based loosely on the famous director Jacques Tati's Mr. Hulot who also had hilarious adventures.

Directed by Alan Barkan, by Norah Foster. With Simone Bloch, Sarang Cho Lee, Chris Habash, Scott Alexander Ayres, Edward Kimak, Tom Westlake, Alicia Barela, Vicki Zabarte, Patrick Glenn, Martha Luehrmann, Chris Cruz, CJ Gross, Cai Shaotian. Crew: Carmen Yu, Juliet Plafker, Harriet Hache, Robert Gudmundsson, Jerome Solberg.

Madame Gufay plays for two weekends only at 8 p.m. on December 12th, 13th, 19th, and 20th at Live Oak Theatre in (north) Berkeley, just down the street from Berkeley's Gourmet Ghetto.