La Piara's GUERRA: A CLOWN PLAY Comes to Links Hall, 7/26-8/4

Mexico City-based company La Piara in collaboration with Chicago writers/directors Seth Bockley and Devon de Mayo (who previously co-wrote and co-directed As Told by the Vivian Girls for Dog & Pony Theatre Company as part of Steppenwolf's Garage Rep) returns to Chicago with its satirical physical comedy Guerra: A Clown Play at Links Hall, 3111 N. Western Ave., for seven performances, July 26-Aug. 4. The piece was previously performed in Chicago at Millennium Park in March 2012.

The play combines slapstick, clown, dance, bouffant and farce to tell the story of a military outpost desperate for recruits, and the cannon fodder that a hapless general sends to war. This contemporary story of war's inhumanity is given a darkly humorous edge through the medium of clown.

Guerra: A Clown Play runs Friday-Sunday, July 26-28, at 7 p.m.; Friday, Aug. 2 at 7 and 9 p.m. and Saturday-Sunday, Aug. 3-4 at 7 p.m. at Links Hall in Constellation, 3111 N. Western Ave., in Chicago. Tickets are $12 in advance, $15 at the door and may be purchased in advance at www.linkshall.org. For more information on the show, audience can call 773-281-0824. Please note that tickets are not sold over the phone.

In Guerra, La Piara's performers Artús Chávez, Fernando Córdova Hernández and Madeleine Sierra play a trio of military officers engaged in a struggle against an unseen enemy amassing offstage. Their epic yet intimate story improbably features a Price-Is-Right style recruitment lottery, a rendition of French nursery rhyme "Alouette," and a certain dance made popular by Beyoncé. The play is informed by the American and Mexican perspectives of its creators, and its unique combination of bombast, camp, silliness and serious source material makes Guerraan irreverent yet accessible satire.

Performed in three languages and featuring a climactic paper plane bombardment, this lean touring performance lasts 55 minutes. It was developed over 2011 and 2012 through Theater Communication Group's "On the Road" grant, and first presented at the In The Works series in Chicago's Pritzker Pavilion, in Millennium Park, in March 2012. The show was then presented at the New York Clown Theater Festival in September 2012 at The Brick in Brooklyn; at the Revolutions Festival at Tricklock Theatre in Albuquerque, New Mexico in January 2013; in Mexico City at the Foro Shakespeare March-May 2013; and will be coming to Chicago straight from a July run at The Tank Theatre in New York.

LA PIARA is a clown / bouffant company made up of Artús Chávez, Fernando Córdova Hernández and Madeleine Sierra. They have performed and taught clowning together in Mexico City for many years. They trained in America, Paris and London and toured around the world with their first show, El Extraño Caso de Tai Chi y Té Chai.

Seth Bockley is a Chicago-based playwright, director and performer. His writing credits include The Elephant & The Whale (Redmoon with Chicago Children's Theatre); February House, a collaboration with lyricist and composer Gabriel Kahane (New York's Public Theater); Ask Aunt Susan, premiering at the Goodman in the 2013-2014 season; adaptations of two George Saunders short stories, CommComm and Jon; as well as The Twins Would Like To Say (Dog & Pony) and Laika's Coffin and Winter Pageant 2010 (Redmoon Theater). As a director, his credits include Philip Dawkins' Failure: A Love Story, Jason Grote's Civilization (all you can eat) and 1001, Marius von Mayenburg's The Ugly One, as well as numerous Redmoon events and spectacles. He was a recipient of Theater Communication Group's "New Generations" grant, and is Playwright in Residence at the Goodman Theater.

DEVON DE MAYO most recently directed Everything is Illuminated at Next Theatre. She is the Co-Artistic Director of Dog & Pony Theatre Company, where she directed Roadkill Confidential, The Further Adventures of Hedda Gabler, Clouds and devised and directed The Whole World is Watching, The Twins Would Like to Say and As Told by the Vivian Girls. Other directing credits include Collaboration Theatre, ATC, Next Theatre, 2nd Story, First Floor Theatre, Canal Café Theatre (London) and the University of Chicago. She teaches at Northwestern University and the University of Chicago. She holds a MFA in Directing from Middlesex University in London and has studied at the Russian Academy of Theatre Arts in Moscow and the Indonesian Institute for the Arts in Bali.

To post a comment, you must register and login.