All the World's a Stage

Theatre Company

...theatre everywhere...

 

ALL THE WORLD’S A STAGE GETS CLOSER

 

 

 

All the World’s a Stage Theatre Company (AWS) will present the play CLOSER, by  Patrick Marber, directed by R. Kevin Doyle at two different locations in Honolulu: 

Bess Press Warehouse, 3565 Harding Ave, on Nov. 12, 13, 14, 19, 20 and 21;

and theVenue, 1146 Bethel Street, on Nov. 26, 27 and 28. 

All Friday and Saturday showtimes are at 8:00 pm and Sundays at 2:00 pm.  Admission prices are $18 general, $15 seniors and $10 students. 

Tickets are available at the door or online here.  Sunday admission is Pay What You Can on a space available basis, with advance tickets at regular prices. 

For more information, call (808) 927-7150.

 

CLOSER is about the intricate relationships between four people:  Anna, Alice, Dan and Larry.  Ostensibly, the title implies that the play would be about things that bring people closer together.  “Not always so,” says Hannah Schauer Galli, AWS’s Associate Artistic Director who also plays Anna.  “The truth should bring you closer.  But in this play, relationships are sabotaged when the characters are truthful about hurtful things they have done.  What should bring you together, done with wrong intent, tears you apart.”  R. Kevin Doyle, the director of the production, adds, “Closer challenges us to ask if truth and honesty are compatible with love and happiness.”   The four characters mix and match in their love quadrangles as their relationships are destroyed.  “The playwright shows the beginnings and endings of relationships, and nothing in between.  The audience is left to fill in the gaps,” commented Galli.  “The acting challenge is in taking something ugly and making it beautiful or giving it purpose.  It’s very difficult to only play the ugly sides of a relationship and make it truthful.”  Doyle noted, “Even though the subject is serious, the playwright attacks it with short, fast dialogue and a great deal of humor.”  It is that blend of humor and depth that is becoming All the World’s a Stage’s trademark.  Like last year’s The Shape of Things, CLOSER is filled with dark humor.  “It’s the kind of play that excites us,” said Galli, “edgy, daring...it’s both a dark contemporary drama and a hip tragic comedy.”

 

CLOSER won the Laurence Olivier Award and was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Play in 1999.  A 2004 film adaptation was a cult favorite starring Julia Roberts, Jude Law, Natalie Portman and Clive Owen.  The All the World’s a Stage cast features Hawai’i’s local brand of starpower with Michelle Hurtubise, Jim Aina, and the actor known as “Q” joining Galli and Doyle.  Just as the relationships in CLOSER have a “two degrees of separation” quality to them, so too do the professional relationships of these five outstanding theatre veterans.  Up until now, they have never all worked on the same project, but have intertwined on local stages.  Galli recently directed Hurtubise in her Po’okela award performance in The Shape of Things for AWS.  Galli and Aina played opposite each other in TAG’s Shadowlands.    Hurtubise and Aina were directed by Galli in The 8:  Reindeer Monologues.  Q played the title role in Doyle’s production of Pericles at HSF, and he was also a company member at HTY this past year where Hurtubise also performed.  Doyle and Galli were also graduate students together at UH where each received an MFA in Directing.  CLOSER has indeed brought these five...closer.

 

All the World’s a Stage Theatre Company’s mission is to provide “theatre everywhere.”  This production, in keeping with last year’s development of In Your Space Theatre, will turn the Bess Press Warehouse in Kaimuki into a photographer’s studio flat, where much of the play is staged.  After a two week run at Bess Press Warehouse, the show will then play one week at theVenue, Chinatown’s newest performance house.  “If people have a hard time getting to a theatre, then we’ll bring the theatre to them,” said Galli. 

 

This production includes adult language and situations and is not suitable for young audiences. 

Performances on November 26 & 27 will be followed by musical performance by "Onward, Etc.  Rosco Wuestewald." 

 

Like all of All the World’s shows, Sundays are special Pay What You Can performances.  AWS is committed to making live theatre affordable to everyone and providing an artistic alternative for people’s time.

 

© 2010 All the World's a Stage Theatre Company