Plastic Theatre Company brings real performances to Theatre 810 downtown.
Plastic Theatre Company brings real performances to Theatre 810 downtown.
Lafayette's Theatre 810, the newest live performance and multi-media space in downtown Lafayette at 810 Jefferson St., is showing Plastic Theatre's performances of two absurdist plays the first three weekends in March.
This double bill of one-act plays by Edward Albee and Samuel Beckett marks the premiere of this company. Its artistic director is Keith Dorwick.
Dorwick himself stars in Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape. The play begins with Knapp, a 69-year-old man who sits down to listen to audio journals he's recorded over the years. We see him reflect on the women he's loved and lost, his parents and his childhood in Ireland.
The second one-act by Albee is called The Zoo Story. In it the two characters, Peter and Jerry, stike up a conversation as strangers on a shared park bench. Jerry is lonely and desperate for the affection conversation brings and Peter is the plucky, happy family man. Jerry keeps trying to draw Peter further and further into conversation leading up to the play's very shocking and suprising ending.
The term "absurdist theater" covers a wide range of writers and styles, of whom Beckett and Albee are two of the bigger examples. These plays were written in the late 1950s at the start of the movement. The idea was for playwrights to hightlight the randomness of life and question its meaning. In absurdist plays, anything can happen.
Performances begin March 1. Showtimes are 7:30 p.m. March 1-3, 8-9 and 15-17. Matinee performaces are March 4 and 18 with a 3 p.m. showtime. Tickets are available by calling 484-0172 or online here.