The Wright Opera House
4 Performances, June 3-6
This play is insane.
Just to warn you.
It’s not nice. It’s not politically correct. It’s not comforting.
But golly, it’s funny.
We’re used to bringing you more heartwarming, life-affirming theater here at UpstART, plays where people confront difficult aspects of their lives and find some kind of redemption and hope and love.
This isn’t that kind of play.
It’s… well, hilariously darker. It looks avidly at the polite veneer of our daily interactions and asks, what’s beneath? And how thin is that veneer, actually?
Yasmina Reza took her inspiration from a conversation she had: There was a little incident in the life of my son. He was then about thirteen or fourteen and his friend was in a fight with another friend; they exchanged blows and my son’s friend had his tooth broken. A few days later, I met with the mother of this boy in the street. I asked her how her son was, if he was better, because I knew they’d had to do something to the tooth—they’d had to operate or something. And she said, ‘Can you imagine? The parents (of the other boy in the fight) didn’t even call me.’
And then she imagined how a meeting between both sets of parents might have gone. "It was suddenly, click! I thought, 'This is an incredible theme.' Four well-intentioned people get together, the conversation takes a few wrong turns, and, finally, we are face to face with our worst impulses. Who are we, really, behind our good manners? In these strange, fraught, argumentative times, it seems a question worth asking, as Michael does in the play: “What do we know?”
Reza’s satire is biting and sharply observed, and the play has delighted audiences since its first performances. The play’s London production won the Olivier award for best new comedy, its Broadway production the Tony for best play. In NY, it was the third longest-running play of the 2000’s..
We are so excited to bring it to our audiences here in Ouray County.
