VIRTUAL REALITY
Virtual Reality, by Alan Arkin
Directed and produced by Sandy Topzand
Cast: Brian Andre and Eli Thorne
Sound: Alex McKenzie, Lighting: John Ricker
Stage manager; sound and video design: Sandy Topzand
Performed 23rd May 2015
FEATS: Festival of European Anglophile Theatre Societies.
Altonaer Theater, Museumstrasse 17
22765 Hamburg, Germany
http://feats-hamburg.de/
We were awarded:
Best Play, Best Actor (Eli and Brian jointly) and the Stage Management Award
Synopsis
Two men waiting for equipment to do an unspecified job. The one in charge insists on doing a dry run inventory of the contents of the expected crates. The purely hypothetical assumes a wacky, sinister autonomy that transports them to a frozen wilderness. They grow close; they grow apart; they become mortal enemies.
A gem of nuanced interaction, one of those deftly constructed two-handed exercises built on back-and-forth shifts of mood. A deeply funny, finely graded psychological portrait that also becomes a tribute to the conjuring powers of theater. Imagine the testy, silly one-upmanship of Abbott and Costello crossed with the menacing ambiguity of Harold Pinter and you'll get the idea.
Gallery
(Thanks to Arjen Veldt www.arjenveldt.nl for his photographs from our Badhuistheater performance.)
