RED BULL THEATER BURNING

A reading of a play is a strange thing. It must be clear, moving, emotional, funny, powerful, understandable, interesting, convincing, etc, using words alone, and usually not that many rehearsals. No stage design, no sets, no costumes, no body language, no weeks of rehearsal... neither to deepen the actors' understanding of the play and the character, nor to help the audience understand the play and enjoy the eye candy of great sets and costumes.

Burning, Burning, Burning, Burning by David Bar Katz managed to be funny, and powerfully moving, just on the strength of words alone in a reading at the Red Bull Theater. It is a meditation on ways that humans react when assaulted by unspeakable horror committed by fellow humans. And it's funny. But not at the end.

The acting, by Eric Bogosian and the entire cast, was excellent.

The story takes place during a time of horrible and repeated pogroms against Jews by their neighbors, when one member of the Jewish community returns after having been convinced that the Messiah has come and will save them all. The play is specific to its place and time (Poland 1666) and community and situation. But the subject -- how victims of sustained violence, massacres and atrocities against their ethnic, religious, racial, political, class or economic community deal with their situation -- is universal.

Red Bull Theater is currently developing a production of Webster's The Duchess of Malfi, which opens Feb 23. (See below for a description.)

Very interestingly, in conjunction with this play, they have scheduled readings of other versions of the story of the Duchess (The Red Bull Theater has a very active program of play readings):

Monday March 15th, 7:30pm
THE STEWARD OF THE DUCHESS OF AMALFI
by Lope de Vega
A lyrical, haunting tragedy of tortured desire, class conflict and revenge - written a few years after Webster's version.
newly translated by Álvaro Mendoza
Directed by Michael John Garcés
Featuring Zabryna Guevara and Alfredo Narciso
Post-play Bull Session

Monday March 22nd, 7:30pm
BRECHT’S DUCHESS OF MALFI
Adapted by Bertolt Brecht and W.H. Auden
Brecht’s version of Webster’s masterpiece for a 1946 Broadway production intensifies the original’s dark undercurrents.
Directed by Ian Strasfogel
Featuring Francesca Faridany
Post-play Bull Session

Here's a little more information from Red Bull about their production of Webster's Duchess of Malfi:

THE DUCHESS OF MALFI

BY JOHN WEBSTER

DIRECTED BY JESSE BERGER

ABOUT THE PLAY
A great romance turns to horror as the Duchess of Malfi seeks true love in a world of forbidden passions. A play for our time as much as its own, John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi examines sexual repression, honor, class, and the true value of the human spirit, in this explosive drama of Italian intrigue. Red Bull Theater’s production is the first Off Broadway revival of this Jacobean masterpiece in over 50 years.

CAST
Heidi Armbruster, Jason C. Brown, Clark Carmichael, Keith Hamilton Cobb, Matthew Greer, Carol Halstead, Eric Hoffmann, Patrick Page, Matthew Rauch, Christina Rouner, Gareth Saxe, and Haynes Thigpen.

PRODUCTION
Designs by Beowulf Boritt, Emily DeCola, Jared B. Leese, Nathan Leigh, Erin Kennedy Lunsford, Jason Lyons, Sèan McArdle, and Jessica Scott. Casting by Stuart Howard, Music by Scott Killian, Voice and Speech by Shane Ann Younts, Choreography by Tracy Bersley and Stage Violence by J. David Brimmer. Stage Manager: Rebecca C. Monroe. General Manager: Lisa Dozier. Publicist: David Gersten & Associates. Directed by Jesse Berger.