Cast: Tiffany Bedwell, Antonio Brunetti, Casey Chapman, Anya Clingman, David A. Holcombe, Emily Lotspeich, Maria Stephens, David Steiger, and Bob Wilson.
Playwright
Ruth Margraff is an American playwright, librettist, lyricist, and performer. She has been called a leader in America’s avant-garde for her audaciously original use of language as poetic and vocal art. She is best known in Chicago for her critically acclaimed ANGER/FLY with Trap Door Theatre. She has also written such plays as Night Wind from Afghanistan, SEVEN, and Previously Blue.
Set Designer: Mike Mroch / Lighting Designer: Richard Norwood / Costume Designer: Tonette Navarro / Makeup Designer: Zsofia Otvos / Video & Graphic Designer: Michal Janicki / Sound Designer: Mikey Moran / Choreographer: Lyndsay Rose Kane / Fight Choreographer: Mathias Maloff / Musical Director & Arranger: Nicholas Tonozzi / Incidental Music Composer: Nikos Brisco / Stage Manager: Anna Badenoch Eisenbraun / Assistant Stage Manager: Skye Fort / Production Manager: Allison Raynes / Recording Engineer: Robert Eisenbraun
Anger/Fly
Written by Ruth Margraff
Directed by Kate Hendrickson
May 20 – June 30, 2012
Presented with support from an Artist Project grant from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency.
Inspired by an eight-page film scenario written by Eugene Ionesco, ANGER/FLY deconstructs and expands the story of a perfect little town that erupts in a violent riot set off when all the husbands simultaneously find flies in their soup. The piece is a dark absurdist comedy that explores a tramp as gypsy, communism as cyclical utopian apocalypse, and marriage as manic ritual. The adaptation utilizes the contrived innocence of bubblegum pop, the exaggerated expressionism of silent film, and the rolling cadence of player piano ragtime rhythms. Ionesco’s original film scenario, entitled La Colère (Anger) is written in short narrative form. It begins with happy townfolk coming out of church one sunny spring morning and ends with the destruction of the world. Throughout the action, a “lady television announcer” calmly broadcasts good news. ANGER/FLY translates this montage into a hysterically visceral live performance event. The multi-layered piece was adapted and devised by playwright Ruth Margraff, with director Kate Hendrickson and the Trap Door ensemble, through a uniquely collaborative process that delved into cubist points of view, Ionesco’s use of language, his themes of social estrangement and the absurdly farcical tone of his work.
Gallery
Trap Door’s masterful take on what this kind of theater can do and be now begins with a premise from a short Ionesco scenario for a film titled simply “Anger.”
Monica Westin, NewCity Chicago
Created for Trap Door Theatre, his world premiere of Anger/Fly takes the audience on a journey far beyond the bounds of lucidity, and the result is a visceral and truly stunning experience.
Paul Kubicki, Stage and Cinema
Nobody has sardonic smiles down pat quite like the raucous, challenging, giddy ensemble over at Trap Door Theatre.
Time Out, Chicago
Trap Door’s 2012 season was named “The Best String of Theatrical Stunners”
Chicago Reader
Director
Resident Director Kate Hendrikson specializes in premiering new plays by radical American playwrights, and has been a Trap Door company member since 2005. Kate is a Chicago native and a graduate of Bennington College. In addition to her work with Trap Door Kate has directed for Chicago Dramatists, Red Tape, Link’s Hall Physical Fest, Pivot Arts, and the International Voices Project. She is also a teaching artist with Urban Gateways.