Sept. 23-Oct. 11: REP presents 'The Patsy'
Resident Ensemble Players to present bedroom farce 'The Patsy'
2:17 p.m., Sept. 22, 2015--Bedtime turns to bedlam in the outrageous comedy The Patsy, based on Georges Feydeau’s Le Dindon and given new life by playwright Greg Leaming. The University of Delaware Resident Ensemble Players presents the bedroom farce Sept. 23 through Oct. 11 at the Roselle Center for the Arts.
This lightning-paced romp brimming with old lovers, new flames and a host of compromising positions was commissioned by the REP for the resident professional acting company.
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Virtuous Lucienne has vowed never to cheat on her husband, unless, of course, he cheats on her first. Hanky-panky abounds when she’s pursued by a lascivious family friend, her husband’s German lover reappears from the past, and two elderly American tourists just want a good night’s sleep in a very lively Paris hotel of questionable reputation.
“No one in the history of theatre has ever done farce as brilliantly as Georges Feydeau,” says playwright Leaming. “Having worked on a number of his plays, I’ve come to the conclusion that what makes them so brilliant is not just their bawdiness – and they are definitely bawdy – and not just their brilliant structure – although their plots do feel so cleanly and precisely put together as to resemble Swiss watches! – but the humanity at the heart of them.
“Feydeau sees his characters as all too human and somehow gets us in the audience to see this as well, prodding us to forgive them because deep down inside we are just as lustful, just as venal and just as petty as they are. It just happens that we are having a good night, and they aren’t.”
The Patsy opens on Friday, Sept. 25 and runs through Sunday, Oct. 11.
Preview performances of the play are on Wednesday and Thursday, Sept. 23 and 24, at 7:30 p.m.
Tickets are $23-$29, with discounts for students and senior adults.
Tickets for the production can be purchased online at the REP website, by phone at 302-831-2204, or in person at the REP box office in the Roselle Center for the Arts, 110 Orchard Rd., Newark, Monday through Friday, from noon until 5 p.m.
Free pre-show and post-show special events for the production can be found online.
A complete schedule, directions and information on purchasing tickets can be found at the REP website or by calling the box office. A parking garage is located adjacent to the center.
The REP’s performances are sponsored in part by the Delaware Division of the Arts.
About the playwright
Greg Leaming is the director of the Florida State University/Asolo Conservatory for Actor Training and associate artistic director of Asolo Repertory Theatre.
For the Asolo Rep, he has directed his own translation/adaptation of Pierre Hennekin and Maurice Veber’s Anything to Declare? as well as Good People, Boeing, Boeing, God of Carnage, Other Desert Cities, Hearts, The Imaginary Invalid, The Play’s The Thing and the world premiere of Jason Wells’ Men of Tortuga. He will be directing Ah, Wilderness! in the Asolo’s 2015-16 season.
He was also the curator of Asolo Rep’s Unplugged New Play series.
As director of artistic programming for Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut, he directed Arms and the Man, and the world premieres of Going Native by Steven Drukman, Abstract Expression by Theresa Rebeck, The Third Army by Joe Sutton, Syncopation by Alan Knee, and An Infinite Ache by David Schulner.
As artistic director of Portland Stage Company (1992-96), he directed, among many other plays, the world premieres of Losing Father’s Body, Church of the Sole Survivor, and Jeffrey Hatcher’s The Turn of the Screw. He was the producing director and associate artistic director for Hartford Stage Company for a total of eight seasons.
Other credits include George Street Theatre, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Merrimack Repertory Theatre, Florida Stage Company, Stamford Center for the Performing Arts, Contemporary American Theatre Festival, Banyan Theatre Company, Shakespeare Sedona, Southwest Shakespeare, Stage West and Philadelphia Drama Guild.
Leaming has devoted much time developing new plays with organizations including New Dramatists, New York Theatre Workshop, New York Stage and Film, Cape Cod Theatre Project, The Gathering at Bigfork and Theatre of the First Amendment.
About the REP
The Resident Ensemble Players (REP) is a professional theatre company located at the University of Delaware.
The REP’s mission is to engage audiences throughout the tri-state area with frequent productions of outstanding classic, modern, and contemporary plays performed in a wide variety of styles that celebrate and demonstrate the range, breadth, and ability to transform a full-time ensemble of nationally respected stage actors who have been trained in the same way.
The REP is committed to create future audiences for live theatre by offering its productions at low prices that enable and encourage the attendance of everyone in the region, regardless of income.
Photo by Nadine Howatt