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If you buy director Todd Merrill's impassioned curtain speech,
nineteenth-century Swedish playwright Lars Mattsun (Whether Wind Wither You
and The Toothless Otter) was the real genius behind the work of "the great
corrupter," August Strindberg. Unearthed during an estate sale, Resa, from
Mattsun's Fruit Period, is his masterwork, the wrenching tale of a young
artist aided by a sprite-child in his journey of self-discovery before
marriage. Don't worry about florid lines like "The foul stench of death has
made a dance floor of my nostrils" or arcane symbolism involving apples and
cats as sexual metaphors-Merrill speaks commentary into headsets the
audience wears to make sure we "get it." (He also speaks profanities at the
cast.) A genius comic experience, nothing in Resa is what it may at first
seem. Don't miss it. It is, in a word, fantastiskt.
-- JADA YUAN
Burglars of Hamm and the
Ghost Road Company
Written by Lars Mattsun; directed by Todd Merrill;
produced by Matt Almos.
Where:
The Present Company Theatorium, 196-198 Stanton
Street
When:
8/17 at 2:15, 8/20 at 3:45.
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