Big Love
Written By Charles Mee
Directed by Maya Roth
Designed by Guest Artist Clint Ramos
"My plays are broken, jagged, filled with sharp edges, filled with things that take sudden turns, careen into each other, smash up, veer off in turns. That feels good to me. It feels like my life. It feels like the world" -- Charles Mee
The Theater Program at Georgetown University continues to host ground-breaking performance with Big Love, Charles Mee's modern re-visioning of Aeschylus' The Suppliant Maidens on March 22nd – 24th at 8 PM, March 25th at 2 PM, and March 28th – 31st at 8 PM in The Gonda Theatre of the new Royden B. Davis Performing Arts Center. Poetic and athletic, this crowd-pleasing season finale by a favorite DC playwright moves forward with a rhythm of pastiche and bold theatricality.
In Mee's adaptation inspired by one of the western world's oldest plays, fifty brides flee their fifty grooms and seek refuge in a villa on the coast of Italy. The fifty grooms soon catch up with the brides, and mayhem ensues: the grooms arrive by helicopter in their flight suits, women throw themselves over and over again to the ground, pop songs and romantic dances erupt, and, finally, unable to escape their forced marriages, 49 of the brides murder 49 of the grooms—and one bride falls in love. With a distinctly modern flair, this serious comedy of mythic proportions circulates age-old questions of social justice, gender and love.
Acrobatic, lyrical and filled with music, humor and humanity, Big Love is directed by Maya Roth, Artistic Director of the Davis Center. A director-dramaturg, performer and scholar who specializes in dance theater and ensemble works, Roth has charted an extraordinary success for the Davis Center since its opening in November 2005, hosting guest artists such as Timberlake Wertenbaker and Moises Kaufman, producing area premieres including Eurydice and Galileo's Daughter, and integrating educational and artistic excellence. Ace designer Clint Ramos, based in New York, returns as guest artist to design both set and costumes, fresh from his recent successes on Eurydice, the opera premiere of Angels in America for Boston Opera, and his current designs for Baltimore Center Stage.
Featuring a cast of 19 and a production involving more than 50 Georgetown students, Big Love closes the Theater Program's ambitious second season, Classics re-Visioned. This dynamic adaptation honors the Davis Center's mission to bring outstanding theater to life, including new works, through collaboration with professional artists, educational outreach & an integration of critical and creative inquiry.
Tickets can be ordered online or by calling (202) 687-ARTS. Price of admission is $15 (general seating), $12 (faculty and staff) and $7 (students).
