Thursday, June 12, 2008

Bloodletters, a comedy of terrors, set to open tonight

By Pegasus News wire

The Modern Stage and producer Joe Black present the premiere of Bloodletters, a scary comedy by Tom Sime. The play will open Thursday, June 12 and continue through June 29 at Teatro Dallas.

Robin Armstrong, noted for her work in designing stage violence, directs a cast of five, each playing at least two different characters: Cindee Mayfield, Kevin Grammer, Elizabeth Van Winkle, David Lugo, and Rebekah Kennedy. The design team includes Armstrong (costumes), J. J. Wickham (set), Floyd Kearns-Simmons (music and sound), Jeff Hurst (lighting) and John Harvey (props). Master Carpenter is Dave Tenney and Stage Manager is Ruth Stephenson.

Bloodletters tells the parallel stories of Grace (Cindee Mayfield), a middle-aged horror fiction writer, and the characters in one of her tales. Each of the five actors plays at least two characters: one in the play, one in the story within. While Grace lives a quiet and congenial suburban life with her retired husband Ray (Kevin Grammer), the fictional world is roiling with sexuality and bloodlust, embodied by the villain of her latest tale, the vampire playboy Tyrone (David Lugo). Though Grace is a success as a writer, her daughter Valerie (Elizabeth Van Winkle) resents that success, thinking her mother's work was inspired by Valerie's childhood bouts of mental illness. When Valerie's daughter Cami (Rebekah Kennedy) reads one of grandma's forbidden stories, Grace's two worlds seem to crash into each other, and both layers of the scenario meet in a darkly funny jaw-dropper of an ending.

Sime says "the character of Grace was inspired by Joyce Carol Oates," the bestselling novelist noted for the disturbing violence of her fiction. The playwright idolized Oates as a young adult, and later met and interviewed her while an arts writer at The Dallas Morning News.

"I always wondered how such a meek-seeming, delicate person could imagine such mayhem," Sime says of Oates. "Did she tap into some alternate universe of Grand Guignol, or was the violence she dreamed up a grotesque metaphor for her own suppressed rage?" It was this conundrum, rather than the actual life or works of Oates, that gave rise to the play.

The play was presented by WingSpan Theatre Company in a March 2007 staged reading directed by Armstrong. The response from both critics and audiences was intense and enthusiastic.

This play includes adult language, violence and sexuality, and is recommended for mature audiences only. Performance times are Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 2 p.m. Late Night Friday shows on June 20 and 27 at 11 p.m. with an additional performance Monday, June 23 at 8 p.m. A Talk-Back with the director, playwright, and cast is scheduled for Sunday, June 15 immediately following the play (attendance at play is not mandatory, Talk-Back is free!)

Purchase tickets online or by calling 1-800-595-4849.

Posted by Shawn

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