Oracle Productions Set for Howard Barker's THE CASTLE, 1/23-3/26

Continuing its exciting 2009-2010 season, Oracle Productions is proud to announce the opening of Howard Barker's breakthrough play, THE CASTLE, on January 23, 2010. Oracle's new production is sure to please anyone's taste for catastrophic social satire with a Python-esque twist.

Upon returning from the Crusades (one of them, anyway), a pious knight, his ribald retainer, and a cunning captured servant behold lush overgrowth where once there was an industrious, God-fearing estate. Is this what happens when the women are left in charge? Absurd carnage ensues as the knight restores order by building walls. Barker's 1985 play is a caustic, repulsive, and hysterical examination of the orthodox institution's reaction to social progress. It also contains more nauseating tripe than Monty Python crammed in a clown-car. Come watch Oracle build a castle 10-walls thick.

Born of the social and cultural unrest in mid-1980's Western civilization, Barker's text is a unique invention. His characters and situations are as harsh, deceptive, and unforgiving as his Theatre of Catastrophe seeks to produce, but not without a sense of eccentric irony that also makes them hilarious. Imbued with anachronistic colloquialisms from Cold War-era England and the United States, THE CASTLE is a shockingly crude and oddly timeless piece. Oracle brings audiences into another world where anything goes: a theatre-in-the-round experience of a poetic clash between chaos and order that is both touchingly tragic and downright comical.

THE CASTLE is co-directed by company member Justin Warren and Artistic Director Ben Fuchsen. They are excited to make this piece as large as possible - even if it exceeds the limits of Oracle's storefront theatre. Limits will be broken! Joining them is costume designer and company member Joan Pritchard, set designer and former company member Chris Neil, scenic artist Kristina Carr, lighting designer Sean Campbell, and original music and sound designed by Nick Davio. The design team is rounded off by graphic artist and company member Angela Glyda designing not only posters but also silhouetted shadow puppets.

THE CASTLE runs January 23-March 6, Fridays and Saturdays at 8PM, and Sundays at 7PM at at Oracle Theatre, 3809 N. Broadway in Chicago. Tickets are a donation of $20 at door, $15 Advance and $10 Sundays.