EXTENDED!!!
A TALE TOLD BY AN IDIOT will extend its run at Son Of Semele Ensemble from July 9 – 25, 2010!!!
Click here for tickets and info:
http://www.sonofsemele.org/shows/partnershipproduction.html#idiot
FIVE STARS!!! "An interesting twist on MacBeth.
The very minimal lighting, evoking candlelight in a dark basement, was provided by flashlights largely held by the actors themselves in an effective variation of the classic ‘ghost stories around a campfire’ effect.
And chilling ghost stories these are with excerpts from the blood soaked Shakespeare play illuminating the lessor known failed terrorist act at the start of the 17th century…
…having another way to consider the classic text is always welcome — especially when it seems that we’re in an age of people being so willing to take lives without thinking of the negative consequences."
-Scott Haller, Hollywoodfringe.org
“The fast lighting work made each scene almost cinematic, in that there were multiple panels of action vying for attention, instead of one landscape bound by three realistic dimensions…. The effects were dark, poignant, thought provoking and visually stunning.”
-Jeffrey Day, The State, Columbia, SC
ABOUT THE SHOW:
“Terrorists want a lot of people watching, not a lot of people dead…terrorism is theater.”
-Brian Michael Jenkins, Adviser to U.S. Dept. of Defense
In the summer of 2010, we are living through the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, we have endured a national panic, multiple wars, natural disasters, an historic election, and are coming to terms with the fact that said election was no kind of “easy fix.”
Meanwhile, last month, the Republican Governor’s Convention took on Guy Fawkes, the mastermind of the Gunpowder Plot and the central figure of the movie “V for Vendetta” as a poster child for taking down the government and starting from scratch.
As ludicrous as this sounds, this is nothing new.
Guy Fawkes plotted to kill King James I in 1605.
Shakespeare’s Macbeth slaughtered King Duncan, Banquo, and Macduff’s entire family in a play written in…1605.
A TALE TOLD BY AN IDIOT takes advantage of this historical “coincidence,” and imagines Guy Fawkes in the basement of Parliament, the night before he becomes the original “suicide bomber.” While he contemplates committing his act of “terrorism,” he is visited by a fever dream…Shakespeare’s MACBETH.
Our Fringe Show is a new 60 minute stage work for nine actors which uses Shakespeare’s MACBETH to explore the notion of Terrorism as Performance, and to imagine the “stage fright” that might visit the terrorist as he plans his action. A TALE TOLD BY AN IDIOT brings to life the shattered mental state of “the night before.”
Stylistically, the project is a comic book brought to life. Highly skilled physical actors, clad in black, execute deceptively simple stage tricks. The effect is both engrossing, engaging, and visually stunning.
Using fragments of the original text of MACBETH, A TALE TOLD BY AN IDIOT is both a meditation on terrorism and an experiment in the power of theater artists to electrify an empty space. The project uses bodies, music, and light to transport the audience to a world where dream-logic reigns, and one can no longer fully trust one’s own senses.
Production Team
