Greetings all-It has been a crazy and hectic time since our last post. I returned from North Carolina, where Adam Luckey was BRILLIANT again in HAMLET at the Temple Theatre and immediately jumped in to rehearsals for RABBIT HOLE, David Lindsay-Abaire's beautiful and haunting Pulitzer Prize-winning play, opening this weekend at AGL. And of course, we are all digging out from the ICE STORM OF 2009! I missed the ICE STORM OF 2003 (Thankfully) and I can safely say I'd like to miss the next one as well!! My family and I were without power from Wednesday morning until late Sunday evening. If you are reading this, I hope it is because you have power on at home and your not camped out a library or something...
I am also happy to report that through the generosity of the Miller Family: Penny Miller Harris, Jonathan, Lisa, Emily & Abigail Miller, and Jennifer Miller in gratitude to Hospice of the Bluegrass, all tickets to RABBIT HOLE will begin at $15.
Here are my director's notes, I'll be back throughout the week with more postings on the show:
“But Instead of Hades, you have the rabbit holes. Parallel universes. I liked that part.”
Becca to Jason in Rabbit Hole, Act Two, Scene 3
Perhaps the ultimate rabbit hole, the ultimate parallel universe, is the theatre. The Greeks imagined the theatre as a kind of holy temple, whereby citizens could come and witness the unimaginable: Oedipus blinding himself, Clytemnestra murdering Agamemnon, perhaps the most horrible of all, the Trojan Women learning that Andromache’s child Astyanax, son of the great Trojan hero Hector, has been condemned to death by the Greeks. There is perhaps not a more emotionally devastating scene in the history of Greek tragedy than that of Talthybius, the Greek messenger, bringing the body of the little boy Astyanax on stage, held up on his father’s shield. In the Greek theatre, tragedy was reserved for the Gods and the Greats, princes and warriors, and the Greeks learned from their hubris, their mistakes, their tragedies and through that, shared in a communal catharsis.
In our more modern and democratic times, our tragedies are open to everybody, from Nora Helmer to Willy Loman to Becca and Howie, the main protagonists of David Lindsay-Abaire’s heartfelt and tender play Rabbit Hole. What has made the theatre relevant for 2500 years is the ritual of the communal, cathartic event of live performance. Everyone celebrates the birth of their children, everyone mourns their dead, everyone fears the unimaginable. In this rabbit hole, this parallel universe of this family struggling with grief, individually and collectively, we can come together and share in their struggle, imagine their unimaginable, and have a cathartic experience…In our ever increasingly disconnected, empathy-less world, where our neighbors remain strangers, this rabbit hole connects the entire room you are sitting in to this one family, making a community for one evening, never to be repeated again. The Greeks knew what they were doing…
Becca: And so this is just the sad version of us.
Jason: I guess.
Becca: But there are other versions where everything goes our way.
Jason: Right.
Becca: And those other versions exist. They’re not hypothetical, they’re actual, real people.
Jason: Yeah, assuming you believe in science.
Becca: Well that’s a nice thought…
Thank you for journeying down our rabbit hole. I’ll see you at the other end, wherever, whenever, however it may be…
Peace and Love
Richard St. Peter
Becca to Jason in Rabbit Hole, Act Two, Scene 3
Perhaps the ultimate rabbit hole, the ultimate parallel universe, is the theatre. The Greeks imagined the theatre as a kind of holy temple, whereby citizens could come and witness the unimaginable: Oedipus blinding himself, Clytemnestra murdering Agamemnon, perhaps the most horrible of all, the Trojan Women learning that Andromache’s child Astyanax, son of the great Trojan hero Hector, has been condemned to death by the Greeks. There is perhaps not a more emotionally devastating scene in the history of Greek tragedy than that of Talthybius, the Greek messenger, bringing the body of the little boy Astyanax on stage, held up on his father’s shield. In the Greek theatre, tragedy was reserved for the Gods and the Greats, princes and warriors, and the Greeks learned from their hubris, their mistakes, their tragedies and through that, shared in a communal catharsis.
In our more modern and democratic times, our tragedies are open to everybody, from Nora Helmer to Willy Loman to Becca and Howie, the main protagonists of David Lindsay-Abaire’s heartfelt and tender play Rabbit Hole. What has made the theatre relevant for 2500 years is the ritual of the communal, cathartic event of live performance. Everyone celebrates the birth of their children, everyone mourns their dead, everyone fears the unimaginable. In this rabbit hole, this parallel universe of this family struggling with grief, individually and collectively, we can come together and share in their struggle, imagine their unimaginable, and have a cathartic experience…In our ever increasingly disconnected, empathy-less world, where our neighbors remain strangers, this rabbit hole connects the entire room you are sitting in to this one family, making a community for one evening, never to be repeated again. The Greeks knew what they were doing…
Becca: And so this is just the sad version of us.
Jason: I guess.
Becca: But there are other versions where everything goes our way.
Jason: Right.
Becca: And those other versions exist. They’re not hypothetical, they’re actual, real people.
Jason: Yeah, assuming you believe in science.
Becca: Well that’s a nice thought…
Thank you for journeying down our rabbit hole. I’ll see you at the other end, wherever, whenever, however it may be…
Peace and Love
Richard St. Peter
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