Shows » Shadow of Himself
shadow of himself
This January, we're proud to bring you the world premiere of OBIE Award winning playwright Neal Bell. Shadow of Himself is inspired by The Epic of Gilgamesh, the oldest story in the history of any written language.
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Show Times:
January 8th-31st, 2009
Thursday-Sundays at 8pm
The Access Theater
380 Broadway New York, NY 10013 map
Shadow of Himself looks at Gilgamesh through a contemporary prism without “modernizing” or “updating” it. Instead, Neal uses contemporary attitudes about the ways that men can love each other and are afraid of loving each other, about the function of power, terrorism, preemptive war, fear of failure, fear of loss, of mortality, death, and the need for legacy and fame to create a play of startling immediacy and urgency. It’s an important story for our time and our society…and it’s wonderfully playful.
Using 5 actors the play tells the story of Gil, a prideful king who discovers that his potential for deep, lasting love may be more narcissistically rooted than he first thought, that a preemptive attack on a monster can have dire consequences, and that fear and grief may make him more of a man than power and control.
The world premiere will bring NYIT award winners Elefterion and Hardy together again for another innovative collaboration. It will open in early January and run through the entire month, so all of you who make New Year's resolutions to see more theatre can get right to it and make good on your promise to yourself. I assure you that you won't regret it. You may even want to see it more than once.
Neal Bell is one of America's most respected playwrights. His plays, which include Two Small Bodies, Raw Youth, Cold Sweat, On The Bum, and Spatter Pattern, have appeared at Playwrights Horizons and at regional theatres including the Berkeley Rep, the Mark Taper Forum, South Coast Rep, the La Jolla Playhouse, and Actors Theatre of Louisville, where his ten-minute play Out The Window was a co-winner of the Heideman Award. A recipient of fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment, and the Guggenheim Foundation, Mr. Bell was awarded an Obie Award for sustained achievement in playwriting.
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credits
directed by
edward elefterion
featuring:
mark cajigao
matt w. cody
emily hartford
daniel ajl kitrosser
adam swiderski
lighting by
kevin hardy
costume and prop design
by
michael tester
Shadow of Himself:
Clinical psychologist Dr. Christoper Bayer joined us at Shadow of Himself on January 18, 2009, to hold a talkback on the themes of fear in the piece. He was kind enough to offer up his thoughts on the play.
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"Theatergoers who hike to a space as off the beaten trail as the Access Theater are generally the types who enjoy something experimentally interesting. Neal Bell and the Rabbit Hole Ensemble are obliging nicely with “Shadow of Himself,” a version of 'Epic of Gilgamesh' staged with an unabashed minimalism!"
"Neal Bell has written an intriguing stage version of "Gilgamesh," the ancient epic poem about an arrogant ruler who discovers his better nature, and the Rabbit Hole Ensemble gives it an equally intriguing production: aggressively minimalist, with the five cast members providing the sound effects and even, sometimes, the lighting."
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"Rabbit Hole Ensemble and Obie Award–winning playwright Neal Bell prove a potent combination in Shadow of Himself. Rabbit Hole's highly physical, expressive style [and] Bell's muscular language feel urgent and riveting under Edward Elefterion's fast-paced direction. The almost complete lack of props or costumes allows the actors to endow their characters with a mythic, a-temporal aura. Bottom line, Shadow should not to be missed in the final two days of its run."
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"A HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PIECE OF THEATRE!
An action-packed and funny meditation on masculinity which has a specifically modern and relatable feel. The five performers are terrific! A fascinating and stimulating piece--I recommend it!"
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"A sharply poignant meditation on masculinity and friendship! The actors bring a disciplined sense of commitment to their characters while creating the effects that bring the play to life. Fans of epic legends and energized experimental theater should see Shadow of Himself!"
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Shadow of Himself “showcases innovative technical approaches and captivating performances. The production features impressive acting by the five cast members. Sparse costumes, limited props, human-made sound effects and a nearly nonexistent set counterbalance the epic nature of the story. Perhaps no other approach to the stagecraft could allow audiences to comprehend such a massive, fantastical story.”
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"The cast does an excellent job playing many individual parts and acting as a chorus, and Kevin Hardy's lighting design is terrific. Bell's adaptation freely moves from lyricism to modernism, and Bell and Elefterion are clear-eyed and direct with what they want to get across."
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"Shadow of Himself gets a visceral shot of moody atmospherics thanks to Hardy's lights, and Elefterion's story theatre-influenced staging is imaginative and evocative. The five person cast is equally splendid, changing personas sometimes faster than one can blink. All five actors flesh out the production with impressive physicality and humor."
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"Neal Bell is one of those playwrights you keep expecting to hit big. The immaculate stylist writes clean, crisp lines for characters quivering with urban angst. His humor is droll and laced with self-deprecating irony, and while his central theme might be summed up as `spiritual alienation’, his topics are usually timely, reflecting a macabre interest in crimes of passion and a rather academic curiosity about what compels humans to violence.”
Marilyn Stasio, Variety
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