From Roger Babb, Professor of Theatre Arts
rbabb@mthholyoke.edu
538-2836

Re: Department of Theatre Arts to produce Marivaux’s La Dispute and Ionesco’s The Bald Soprano

Date: October 19 and run for four days

Roger Babb is directing Marivaux’s La Dispute, an 18th century comedy which will open on October 19 and run for four days . The play is very short and we will probably have two performances a night on Friday and Saturday. Later on in the semester he is directing Ionesco’s The Bald Soprano.

La Dispute opens Thursday October 19
The play is a light comedy in a very dark frame. Two couples have been kept in isolation since birth and are released to see whether men or women are more “naturally” inconstant and unfaithful. The piece has been cast with all women actors and issues of gender construction are thereby doubly underlined. There are also issues of race involved as the attendants and principal observers are a man and woman of color.
Although the play is amusing and challenging for general audiences (it was recently successfully performed at Boston’s A.R.T. directed by Anne Bogart), I think teachers of History, Philosophy, French, Gender Studies, English and the Arts might want to especially encourage (or require) their students to attend.

The translator, Daniel Gerould (Lucille Lortell Distinguished Professor of Theatre and Comparative Literature at C.U.N.Y. Graduate Center) will speak at the Rooke Theatre on Thursday afternoon and after the show on Thursday evening.

The Bald Soprano opens Thursday December 7
This is a classic of the theatre of the absurd. It is extremely funny and also quite short. It is also more than likely that it will be performed by an all women cast..Ionesco’s emphasis on the instability of language, non-linear plotting and the logic of nonsense make him a precursor to the post-modern aesthetic of Richard Foreman’s Ontological Hysteric Theatre, the Wooster Group and Lee Breuer’s Mabou Mines. We had a very succesful production of Jack or the Submission last semester and are continuing our investigation of how to stage these pieces fifty years after they were written.
Again, I encourage professors to use these performances as a resource for discussions within their own disciplines. The theatre department dramaturges will assemble and make available reading lists and articles that might be useful for your classes.
The Rooke Theatre is being reconfigured for these two shows and the performance and audience space will be very intimate and only seat 90 people. Please suggest to your students that they make reservations for these shows at 538-2406.
If you have any questions or comments please call or e-mail me.