October 23-November 9, 2008MAD FOREST
By Caryl Churchill
What happens when a totalitarian regime is suddenly overthrown and a nation is faced with both the gift and the responsibilities of freedom? Set in post-communist Romania, Churchill's kaleidoscopic play (encompassing drama, documentary, and supernatural elements — even a vampire) paints a stunning portrait of a society fumbling toward freedom and stability.
From Backstage.com: "In December 1989, the Romanian people violently overturned the brutally oppressive government of Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. Three months later, British playwright Caryl Churchill, known for works of rare unsentimental clarity, traveled to Bucharest with a group of theatre students to observe at first hand a shaken society fumbling toward freedom and stability — intoxicating and terrifying — in the revolution's chaotic aftermath. Anyone unfamiliar with Mad Forest, Churchill's stark, unsettling, kaleidoscopic drama combining a fictional story line with eyewitness accounts, should rush to see ... stunning revival.
Told from the perspective of two intertwined families of ordinary Romanians, Act 1 explores the harsh struggle to survive in a country lurching toward economic disaster, where a single egg or cigarette is a prized commodity, dreaded secret police are everywhere, and neighbor informs against neighbor, child against parent. It concludes with a powerful interlude in which Churchill's hardworking day laborers, confused soldiers, idealistic students, desperate flower sellers, beleaguered doctors and teachers, and disillusioned secret police address the audience directly (with ... Romanian accents), functioning much like a traumatized Greek chorus as one by one they recall the excitement, chaos, terror, and violence of seizing a freedom they have not yet fully understood.
In Act 2, Churchill reveals the bitter realities and social disorder of the period that followed under Ion Iliescu, as paranoid fears, long-buried ethnic rivalries, and racial prejudices emerge. (One only wishes she'd take a new generation of theatre students to Baghdad.)" — Backstage.com
"Churchill's strengths are evident: her sharp, unpredictable eye, her inventiveness, her unsentimental sympathy." London Times.
SHOW SCHEDULE:
Thursdays at 7pm — Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm — Sundays at 3pm
WHERE: Gorilla Theatre, 4419 N. Hubert Avenue, Tampa, Florida 33614
"Behind Steinbrenner Field"
TICKET PRICES (unchanged for the past three seasons):
Full price: $20 on Thursdays /$25 on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays
Seniors (age 55+) and Students (with ID):
$15 on Thursdays / $20 on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays
Student rush: $10, thirty minutes before the show when available.
