Neil LaBute's AUTOBAHN Comes to the Bridewell Theatre This Month

Sedos will present Neil LaBute’s Autobahn at the Bridewell Theatre from 17-21 September 2024.

This is a unique collection of one-act plays exploring how deep the chasm or intense the claustrophobia could be inside your average family car.

Autobahn consists of seven short plays: Funny; Bench Seat; All Apologies; Merge; Long Division; Road Trip and Autobahn. 

Each of these seven vignettes explore the ethos of perception and relationship – from a make-out session gone awry, to a kidnapping thinly disguised as a road trip, to a reconnaissance mission involving the rescue of a Nintendo 64, to a daughter’s long ride home after her release from rehab.

The show originally premiered in March 2004 as a benefit at the Manhattan Class Company.

Director Taylor Davidson says: "Despite our advances in technology, communication and even transportation in the past 20 years, you still can’t change the proximity, intimacy and inescapability that is sitting next to someone in the front seat of a car. The tension in a relationship that comes from being in enclosed space, heading towards the same destination, with one person in charge of where you’re going and how fast you get there, and the other a passive – or not so passive – passenger is fascinating.

"Layer that again with complex relationships facing their breaking point, and you’ve got a pretty engrossing show without any physicality or staging as a distraction. This show will explore all the conversations we’re forced to have when there’s no escaping the time, place, or person. What do you say when you’ve got someone’s undivided attention, with nowhere else to turn? Autobahn answers this question, for seven pairs of people in seven unique situations."

Autobahn is part of a September season of two plays at the Bridewell Theatre, where Sedos is the resident theatre company. A special 20% discount is available when audience members book both Autobahn and [BLANK] (24-28 September) in one transaction at the online box office.

After Autobahn and [BLANK], Sedos’ 2024 season will conclude with The Color Purple (20-30 November).

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