April 14, 2008
Classic Russian satire reinvented for the 21st century
june.avignone@rochester.edu
The timeless human desire to greedily ascend the
social ladder despite the cost to individual integrity permeates the
International Theatre Program’s production of Alexander
Ostrovsky’s classic Russian satire A
Family Affair.
This perverse and comic take on the decomposition of a
materialistic, hierarchy-addicted society opens April 17 and runs for eight
performances, including one matinee, through April 26 at the Todd Theater
on the River Campus.
Jonathan Wetherbee as Lazar and Rebecca Weiss as Lipochka.
Adapted by Nick Dear from Ostrovsky’s original
1850 play, this production of A Family
Affair explores the narcissistic
obsessions of a bourgeois family as reflected in the mirror of current
pop-cultural values and icons. The production is a collaboration between
award-winning theater professionals and student actors.
Director Roger Benington further layers Dear’s
adaptation with stylistic influences drawn from burlesque shows and Vegas
extravaganzas, while staying true to Ostrovsky’s script. Benington,
the director of Salt Lake City’s acclaimed Tooth & Nail Theatre,
describes to the upcoming production as “Paris Hilton meets Project Runway.”
“While it takes place in Russia, the play
relates to our current mortgage crisis and credit-dependent world as well
as it does to the original Russian society it sought to lampoon,”
says Nigel Maister, artistic director of the International Theatre
Program.
Unlike Ostrovsky’s realist contemporaries, such
as Dostoyevsky who focused on the aristocracy and peasant classes,
Ostrovsky’s biting satire explores the self-destructive greed of a
merchant-class life.
A Family Affair established
Ostrovsky’s reputation as a dramatist, but his satirical insights
into the commercial morals of the day also aroused bitter feelings among
the Moscow merchant community. Discussion of the play in the press was
prohibited and representation of it on stage was out of the question. The
drama also led to Ostrovsky losing his civil service position in 1851.
Maister, whose creative ventures span the genres of
theater, fiction, and puppetry, believes that the contemporary production
reaffirms the “artistic risk-taking the UR International Theatre
Program has become known for.”
Set designer for the play is Dan Evans whose design
work includes graphics for chef Thomas Keller’s restaurant The French
Laundry; Obie award-winning costume designer Kimberly Glennon; lighting
designer Rebecca Makus; sound designer/composer Michael McQuilken;
and choreographer Jonathan Ciccarelli.
The cast includes Philip Dumouchel ’10 as Bolshov; Anna Fagan ’08 as Ustinya; Ben
Fusco-Gessick ’08 as Rispolozhensky; Shannon McCarter ’08 as Agrafena; Chrissy Rose ’11 as Tishka; Eugene Vaynberg ’07 as Fominishna; Rebecca Weiss ’10 as Lipochka; and
Jonathan Wetherbee ’08 as Lazar.
The production will run Thursday, April 17, through
Saturday, April 19, at 8 p.m. and Wednesday,
April 23, through Saturday, April 26, at 8 p.m. There is a matinee on
Sunday, April 20, at 3 p.m. Tickets for A
Family Affair are $6 for students, $8 for
employee; and $10 for the general public. Tickets can be reserved online at
www.rochester.edu/theatre, by calling 275-4088, or purchased at the
door one hour before the performance.
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