The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other, Peter Handke's provocative and wordless drama, opens on Thursday, April 27, at Todd Theatre on the River Campus. Presented by the University's International Theatre Program, the production runs at 8 p.m. on April 27, 28, 29, and May 4, 5, and 6, with a 3 p.m. matinee on Sunday, April 30.
With a cast of 25 actors playing more than 450 characters, the play, sans dialogue, charts the characters' progress as they pass through a public square and sometimes interact with each other in startling, unpredictable, and often comical ways. The work explores human truths about love, war, innocence, delusion, youth, age, vivacity, and death. The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other engages its audience as a group of "people watchers" who see a reflection of their community, their history, and the myths by which people live.
Additionally, audiences will be treated to a second Handke play, Self-Accusation, performed as a prologue or curtain raiser in Todd Theatre lobby one hour before evening shows and the matinee.
Handke, an Austrian, is one of the pre-eminent German-language writers of the late 20th century. His other credits include the experimental dramas Kaspar, which is often compared to Beckett's Waiting for Godot; Offending the Audience; and The Ride Across Lake Constance. He also is the author of the novel The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick; the memoir A Sorrow Beyond Dreams; and the screenplay for the 1987 German film Wings of Desire.
The Rochester production of The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other is directed by Nigel Maister, who has been the artistic director of the International Theatre Program since 2002. Maister designed the production's set, which features a large-scale mural by a well-known Rochester group of urban graffiti artists, FuaKrew. The work will be sold by silent auction over the course of the production's run.
Other production staff includes costume designer Deanna Berg, who has worked extensively with dancer/choreographers Mikhael Baryshnikov and Lucinda Childs, and has designed theater work for the Barrow Group, the Manhattan Ensemble Theatre, the Williamstown Theatre Festival, and others; lighting designer Peter Ksander, a recipient of this year's National Endowment for the Arts/Theatre Communications Group Career Development Grant for Designers; and sound designer Anthony Gabriele, a musician, visual artist, and performer.
Tickets are $10 for the general public; $8 for senior citizens and for faculty, staff, and alumni; and $6 for University students. They can be reserved online at www.rochester.edu/theatre or by calling the box office at
x5-4088. Tickets also can be purchased at the door one hour before performances.
Maintained by Office of Communications
Cast of 25 stages wordless production at Todd Theatre
Christopher Justus '06 plays a globe-totting, Finnish-speaking character . . . and the only one in the play with lines.
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