Advertisement

Hard-hitting subjects to take Center Stage

Two lighter shows bookend stimulating 2008-2009 lineup

April 15, 2008|By Mary Carole McCauley , Sun theater critic

"We've been looking for plays dealing about the black middle class and not street characters," says Center Stage dramaturg Gavin Witt. "But given what's going on now in the economy, I think a large part of our audience, black and white, will find Undine's crisis recognizable."

'Tis Pity She's A Whore, by John Ford, March 11-April 5. This is the first time Center Stage has mounted a 17th-century revenge drama. This one, about the incestuous love between a brother and a sister, has a moment that rivals the blinding scene in Shakespeare's King Lear for sheer stage gore.

"But it's not unremittingly bleak," Lewis says. "It has innocence and grace, comedy and poetry. And the language is very accessible."

Advertisement

The Understudy, by Theresa Rebeck, April 22, 2009-May 31, 2009. The Understudy, which will be fresh from its world premiere this summer at Massachusetts' Williamstown Theatre Festival, is about a supposedly newly discovered play by Franz Kafka that becomes a surprise hit on Broadway. Rebeck intersperses backstage capers with large chunks of the "lost" text - the latter a sly parody of the metaphysical author's style.

mary.mccauley@baltsun.com

Baltimore Sun Articles
|