Fourofakind 135

Four of a Kind: One Pinter, One Ionesco, A Beckett and A Durang

by Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, Christopher Durang and Eugène Ionesco

L'Etage Cabaret
September 5 - 14, 2007
Directed by Tina Brock
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Come and Go
by Samuel Beckett
Vi
Jessica Marcus
Ru
Melissa Santangelo
Flo
Tina Brock
Trouble in the Works
by Harold Pinter
Fibbs
Liam Castellan
Wills
Jeff Haynes
For Whom the Southern Belle Tolls
by Christopher Durang
Amanda
Tina Brock
Lawrence
Dylan Clements
Tom
Tim Gross
Ginny
Jessica Marcus
Foursome
by Eugéne Ionesco
Dupont
Bob Schmidt
Durand
Liam Castellan/Kurt Runco
Martin
Brian Adoff
Pretty Lady
Melissa Santangelo

Director

Tina Brock

Anna Vallejo

Melissa Black

Sound Design

Tina Brock

Stages Manager/Lights and Sound

Ryan McMenamin

Dramaturg/Assistant Stage Manager

Nate Black

Production Manager

Bob Schmidt

Produced by special arrangement with Dramatists Play Service, Inc.

 

Playing time is 60 minutes; there will be no intermission.

 

Feel free to visit the bar and accommodations,

located in the lobby, throughout the show. 

 

Reviews

Four of a Kind (2007)

"Christopher Durang's For Whom the Southern Belle Tolls is a parody of Tennessee Williams with Tina Brock particularly effective as Amanda and Dylan Clements delightfully snippy as her crippled son. Excellent casting and direction of all by Brock."
Steve Cohen, Philadelphia City Paper

"Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium, specializing in Theatre of the Absurd, offers a chance to see four rarely performed little plays by four big playwrights."
Toby Zinman, The Philadelphia Inquirer

Director's Notes

September 2007

Welcome.

Thanks for spending your evening with us and for supporting the 11th annual Philadelphia Live Arts and Fringe Festival.

Four of a Kind marks the third show from the Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium since the company’s formation in May 2006.

One of the highlights of preparing for this year’s Fringe was locating (thanks to Nate Black and Len Kelly), reading, and interpreting the production notebooks Samuel Beckett kept while directing his plays in Germany and England.  We spent hours drinking beer and grousing over six words -- which find their way in or out of Come & Go, depending on which version of the play you are looking at.  We settled on the 127-word version, the script Beckett used in preparation for the 1978 Schiller Theatre production in Berlin.

It’s astonishing how complicated the seemingly simple can be; rehearsing Come & Go felt at times like we were wandering blindfolded in a very dense forest; we experienced what felt like familiar markers along the way, yet often left rehearsal feeling as if we hadn’t come any closer to the treasure.  The more we dug into Come & Go, the more perplexed we became; the more we rehearsed it, the more we wanted to rehearse it, the more it alluded us

Working through the intricacies of Beckett’s work is relaxing, partly because it forces you to settle in, take your time and focus on the process; it requires you to sit with the discomfort and the not knowing, and the idea that the experience will be different every time.

Today, it seems there are ready solutions to every need, every problem.  It’s oddly comforting to know that not everything has an answer.

Tonight’s sampler includes author Samuel Beckett and three other favorites, whose work you’ll be seeing more of in the years to come. We look forward to having you in the audience as we continue to tackle the challenges – acting, directing, designing -- these formidable authors present.

You can follow our progress by visiting our web site, by coming to see the work, by making suggestions, by volunteering your time and resources.

We hope you enjoy the show.

Tina Brock
Artistic Director