Cutting Ball Theater Begins Celebration of August Strindberg Centennial
By: Kelsey Denette Jan. 06, 2012
San Francisco's cutting-edge Cutting Ball Theater ushers in the new year with the first offerings of the company's year-long celebration of the centennial of August Strindberg's death; the company will honor the playwright's vast career throughout 2012 with symposiums, lectures, and staged readings of his works as part of the Hidden Classics Reading Series and RISK IS THIS…The Cutting Ball New Experimental Plays Festival, culminating in a festival of fully-staged new translations of Strindberg's five Chamber Plays, entitled Strindberg Cycle: The Chamber Plays in Rep, in October of 2012. All centennial events take place at the Cutting Ball Theater in residence at EXIT on Taylor (277 Taylor Street) in San Francisco. For tickets and more information, the public may visit cuttingball.com or call 800-838-3006.
The Cutting Ball Theater 2012 Strindberg centennial events are as follows:
Hidden Classics Reading Series
This season, Cutting Ball's Hidden Classics Reading Series explores and celebrates the work of August Strindberg. The series offers a profound look at one of the greatest authors ever to write for the stage in a program that continues to be one of San Francisco's best-kept secrets.
MISS JULIE and A DREAM PLAY
"Two Radical Visions of Theater"
January 29, 2012, 3pm
Cutting Ball Theater begins the 2012 celebration of August Strindberg's centennial with a Hidden Classics presentation of "Two Radical Visions of Theater," staged readings of two plays that encapsulate Strindberg's two major contributions to drama: realism and expressionism. In MISS JULIE, Strindberg examines class tensions through a sexual encounter between an unmarried young lady and her father's valet. In A DREAM PLAY, Indra's daughter comes down to earth to better understand the plight of man; Strindberg structured this play using a dream logic that was later adopted by Expressionist playwrights. Cutting Ball Artistic Director Rob Melrose helms MISS JULIE, featuring Aldo Billingslea, Danielle O'Hare, and Cathleen Ridley; Robert Estes directs A DREAM PLAY featuring Ponder Goddard, along with Kirsten Broadbear, Leticia Duarte, Bennett Fisher, Sam Gibbs,Wylie Herman, Maria Leigh, and Garth Petal.
There will be a traditional Swedish dinner served between the two readings, as well as a discussion of these two vastly different visions of theater. Proceeds from the Swedish dinner will benefit Cutting Ball's season celebrating the Strindberg centennial; those who purchase tickets for the dinner will have priority seating for the staged readings of MISS JULIE and A DREAM PLAY. Swedish dinner tickets are $75; please call 415-292-4700 for more information.
EASTER
"Strindberg and Painting"
April 8, 2012, 1pm
Thought by many to be Strindberg's most successful marrying of his realistic and expressionistic styles, EASTERtells the story of a family on the brink of bankruptcy who finds salvation in the daughter, newly arrived from an asylum, who speaks from beyond this world. Annie Paladino (Tontlawald) directs.
This reading will be followed by a discussion of the play and Strindberg's career as a painter.
THE STRONGER, PARIAH, and SIMOON
"Strindberg and the Occult"
May 6, 2012, 1pm
These three one-act plays show the power of Strindberg's invention. In THE STRONGER, two women sit at a table. One speaks and the other never says a word. The subject in question is the fidelity of the talkative woman's husband. Which of the two women is the stronger? PARIAH tells the story of two men and their fight over gold. InSIMOON, a soldier is bewitched by a mysterious woman from the desert. Amy Clare Tasker directsSTRONGER; Sam Gibbs directs PARIAH; Amy Mueller directs SIMOON.
The readings will be followed by a discussion of the plays and Strindberg's relationship to the occult.
THE KEYS TO HEAVEN
"Strindberg and Expressionism"
May 20, 2012, 1pm
In THE KEYS TO HEAVEN, the death of a man's three children from the plague causes him to go on a surreal journey to the afterworld. His travels take him to the ruins of the tower of Babel, Jacob's Ladder, and the Gate of Heaven. Along the way, he meets Romeo and Juliet, Tom Thumb, Don Quixote, Bluebeard, Hamlet, and Ophelia. One of Strindberg's most peculiar plays, THE KEYS TO HEAVEN was never performed during his lifetime.Robert Estes helms THE KEYS TO HEAVEN.
This reading will be followed by a discussion of the play and Strindberg's influence on expressionism.
RISK IS THIS…THE CUTTING BALL NEW EXPERIMENTAL PLAYS FESTIVAL
June 8 – July 14, 2012
RISK IS THIS…The Cutting Ball New Experimental Plays Festival is one of the only play festivals in America solely dedicated to experimental works for the stage. In addition to two new works, this year's festival features Risk Translations, five workshops of August Strindberg's Chamber Plays in new translations by Paul Walsh in staged readings that push the boundaries of what theater can be. Cutting Ball Artistic Director Rob Melrose will direct all five readings.
Risk Translations
THE GHOST SONATA
June 29 – 30, 2012
THE GHOST SONATA tells the story of a strange encounter between a student and an old man and begins the morning after a terrible fire. A "ghost supper" ensues in a round room, secrets are shared, plots are foiled, illusions are shattered, and the true haunting nature of things is revealed. The most well known of Strindberg's Chamber Plays, THE GHOST SONATA will serve as the centerpiece of Cutting Ball's upcoming Strindberg Cycle: The Chamber Plays in Rep.
THE PELICAN and THE BLACK GLOVE
July 6 – 7, 2012
Based on the belief that a Pelican sheds its own blood to feed its young, THE PELICAN presents a family where the exact opposite is true. The widow Elise plots with her lover to steal her children's inheritance while they starve in their own home. When the children discover the truth, the revelation sparks a small revolution.
In THE BLACK GLOVE, it is the day before Christmas Eve in a five-story apartment building. An old man and a caretaker find a black glove in the entryway, precipitating a strange chain of events involving a young wife, two maids, two fairies, a missing ring, and a child.
STORM and BURNED HOUSE
July 13 – 14, 2012
In STORM, an elderly gentleman near the end of his life lives peacefully in a building neighbors call "the quiet house." His peace is shattered, however, when the new neighbors upstairs, the young wife and child he left so many years ago, and her new husband, plan to turn their home into a private casino. Years of jealousy and resentment rise to the surface as he tries to help his former wife out of a bind and finds that the ghosts of his past still haunt him.
In BURNED HOUSE, Arvid arrives in his hometown of Stockholm after decades of living in the United States only to find that his childhood home burned down the night before. While detectives search through the rubble for clues about the cause of the fire, Arvid sifts through the ashes to uncover the dark secrets hidden by his family and the town. As more secrets are revealed, Arvid finds the tools he needs to exact revenge on his brother for crimes committed long, long ago.
Strindberg Cycle: The Chamber Plays in Rep
Featuring full productions of all five of Stringberg's Chamber Plays, in new translations by Paul Walsh, Strindberg Cycle: The Chamber Plays in Rep runs in repertory at Cutting Ball October-November 2012. During Strindberg Cycle, audiences will have the opportunity to see the plays performed separately, as well as in a "Chamber Play Marathon" of all five shows in one day. The Chamber Plays are Ghost Sonata, The Pelican, Storm, Burned House, and The Black Glove; this will be the first time all five of Strindberg's Chamber Plays will be performed together in repertory in any language. Strindberg Cycle is made possible by a grant from the Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation, Swedish Arts Council, and the Swedish Institute.
Translator Paul Walsh, director and Cutting Ball Artistic Director Rob Melrose, and actor and Cutting Ball Associate Artistic Director Paige Rogers dreamt about bringing Strindberg Cycle to fruition for years, as all three are Strindberg aficionados. Melrose did his thesis at the Yale School of Drama on Strindberg's last play The Great Highway, and directed the play, which, at the time, had only been produced once in the U.S. Walsh completed his doctoral dissertation on the early plays of Strindberg at the University of Toronto on "August Strindberg and Dramatic Realism, 1872-1886." Rogers completed her Princeton University senior thesis on Strindberg's Miss Julie, performing the title role in a production she also directed.
A pioneer of naturalism, expressionism, and the theater of dreams, August Strindberg (1849 –1912) was one of the world's most important playwrights and his influence can still be felt today. Tennessee Williams, Eugene O'Neill, Edward Albee, Ingmar Bergman, and Strindberg's contemporary Henrik Ibsen all cite him as an important influence on their work. Strindberg was a novelist, poet, painter, linguist, and scientist. Near the end of his life, he moved back to his native Sweden and became involved with a small theater in Stockholm called the Intiman (or "intimate") Theater, for which he wrote five plays, each under 90 minutes. He called them Chamber Plays, signaling that these works would be more compact than the "symphonic" plays he wrote earlier in his career, and noted an affinity he had with chamber music by composers like Beethoven and Chopin. Strindberg wrote more than 70 plays, novels, short stories, and studies of Swedish history, and is arguably one of Scandinavia's most influential authors. He is widely known as one of the fathers of modern theater.
Rob Melrose is the Artistic Director and co-founder of the Cutting Ball Theater, where his directing credits includePelleas and Melisande (in a new translation by Melrose); the Bay Area Premiere of Will Eno's Lady Grey (in ever lower light); The Tempest; The Bald Soprano; Victims of Duty; Bone to Pick and Diadem (World Premiere);Endgame; Krapp's Last Tape; The Taming of the Shrew; Macbeth; Hamletmachine; As You Like It; The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World; Mayakovsky: A Tragedy; My Head Was a Sledgehammer; Roberto Zucco; The Vomit Talk of Ghosts (World Premiere); The Sandalwood Box; Pickling; Ajax for Instance; Helen of Troy (World Premiere); and Drowning Room (World Premiere). Translations include No Exit, Woyzeck, Pelleas and Melisande, The Bald Soprano, and Ubu Roi. He has directed at The Guthrie Theater (Happy Days, Pen); Magic Theatre (An Accident, World Premiere); PlayMakers Rep (Happy Days); California Shakespeare Theater (Villains, Fools, and Lovers); Black Box Theater (The Creature, World Premiere, BATCC Award for direction), as well as Actors' Collective; Alias Stage; and Crowded Fire, among others. He is a recipient of the NEA / TCG Career Development Program award for directors. In spring 2010, he was The Public Theater's artist-in-residence at Stanford University, where he directed Troilus and Cressida; Melrose will direct Troilus and Cressida at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in association with The Public Theater as part of OSF's 2012 season, as well as The Acting Company's production of Julius Caesar at The Guthrie.
Paige Rogers is an actress and Associate Artistic Director and co-founder of the Cutting Ball Theater. At Cutting Ball, her directing credits include The Hidden Classics Reading Series, Suzan-Lori Parks' 365 Plays/365 Days,Risk is This...The Cutting Ball New Experimental Plays Festival, and Mud; she will direct the World Premiere Cutting Ball Commission Tontlawald, by Eugenie Chan, this February. Additionally, she has appeared in Cutting Ball's productions of Eugenie Chan's plays Bone to Pick and Diadem; in the company's hit production of The Bald Soprano; My Head Was a Sledgehammer; As You Like It; The Vomit Talk of Ghosts; Macbeth; Accents in Alsace;and The Taming of the Shrew. Rogers has been seen locally with Berkeley Opera, Lamplighters, Sonoma County Repertory Theater, and on tour with California Shakespeare Theater. Nationally, she has performed at The Kennedy Center, McCarter Theater, Trinity Repertory Company, and Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
Paul Walsh is Associate Professor of Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism at the Yale School of Drama and Artistic Director of the New Harmony Project, a new play development residency program dedicated to serving writers who celebrate hope and the resiliency of the human spirit. For nine years (1996-2005), Walsh was resident Dramaturg and Director of Humanities at American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, where he collaborated on dozens of productions, including his own translations of August Strindberg's Creditors (1992), Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House (2004), and Hedda Gabler (2007). His translation of Ibsen's The Master Builder was produced to critical and popular acclaim in 2005 by Aurora Theatre Company in Berkeley and in a revised version at Yale Repertory Theatre in 2009. Additionally, Walsh has worked at new play development venues including the O'Neill Playwrights Conference, the Playwrights Center in Minneapolis, and the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, among others; he serves on the Board of Directors of the Ibsen Society of America.
Co-founded in 1999 by theater artists Rob Melrose and Paige Rogers, Cutting Ball Theater presents avant-garde works of the past, present, and future by re-envisioning classics, exploring seminal avant-garde texts, and developing new experimental plays. Cutting Ball Theater has partnered with Playwrights Foundation, and the Magic Theatre/Z Space New Plays Initiative to commission new experimental works. The company has produced a number of World Premieres, West Coast Premieres, and re-imagined various classics. Voted "Best Theater Company" in the 2010 San Francisco Bay Guardian Best of the Bay issue, Cutting Ball Theater also earned the Best of SF award in 2006 from SF Weekly, was selected by San Francisco Magazine as Best Classic Theater in 2007, and received the 2008 San Francisco Bay Guardian Goldie award for outstanding talent in the performing arts. Cutting Ball Theater was featured in the February 2010 issue of American Theatre Magazine.
For more information about Cutting Ball Theater and the Strindberg centennial events or for tickets to upcoming productions, the public can visit cuttingball.com or call 800-838-3006.
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