'Sunken Living Room'-Award Winner Premieres-Coral Gables
By: Beau Higgins Apr. 15, 2006
The New Theatre
NOW PLAYING until May 7, 2006
THE SUNKEN LIVING ROOM
by DAVID CAUDLE
In a co-production with Southern Rep,
Directed by Ryan Rilette
with Arianne Ellison, Kathryn Lee Johnston,
John Magaro and Rudy Mungaray
The Sunken Living Room won the 2005 Southern New Plays Festival and
was a Gold Medal Finalist for the Pinter Review Prize for Drama,
2004. Slated for a world premiere in November '05 at Southern Rep in
New Orleans, the play was cancelled when Katrina came to town. New
Theatre and New Orleans' Southern Rep now co-produce the play in its
world premiere.
as the world around him changes while his mother is off playing
bridge, his airline pilot father is off playing around, and his
brother is off on a drug binge with a girlfriend. In The Sunken
Living Room Miami-born and bred playwright David Caudle revisits and
remembers what it was like to grow up and come of age in 1970's
Miami.
co-production of New Theatre and Southern Repertory... worth the
wait... full of humor, compassion, keen observation and period-
perfect language... Magaro's Wade... is a kid who swings from
intellectual confidence to emotional/social awkwardness... in the
end, adorable... Mungaray gives a performance that exudes both
intensity and complexity... Ellison... communicates her character's
duality, her tough exterior and vulnerable interior... Roza...
suggests a self-absorbed mother who has had it up to here... The
Sunken Living Room is an artistically impressive way to say
farewell."
- Christine Dolen, Miami Herald"...After 20 years, the New Theatre is going out with a bang and a
flourish as it prepares to leave its Coral Gables home... The Sunken
Living Room, a one-night maelstrom in the life of a troubled Miami
family, pushes all the right buttons to create an intense wave of
déjà vu... Mungaray delivers a performance that seems an adolescent
riff on Al Pacino in the Scarface remake... John Magaro is
fascinating as Wade... Ellison easily creates sexual tension New
Theatre veteran Pamela Roza... a small but convincing performance...
The Sunken Living Room is a drama with much to say about growing up
too soon in a world that's moving too fast... Ryan Rilette from the
Southern Rep compensates by generating an aggressive and staccato
pace that is its own virtue... Jesse Dreikosen's set
shouts "Kendall," and K. Blair Brown's costuming illustrates the
period. Lighting is by Michael Foster and, with Ricardo Mungaray's
sound cues, clearly takes the story through a rough-and-tumble day
in purgatory."
- Jack Zink, Sun Sentinel
The New Theatre
4120 Laguna Street, Coral Gables, Florida 33146
305-443-5909 (Box Office)
http://www.new-theatre.org
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