The Department of Theatre and Dance at Gustavus Adolphus College has announced it is adding a midnight performance on Friday, Nov. 21 of its latest production, Eugene Ionesco’s comic drama The Lesson.
Tickets for the added performance will go on sale at 1 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 20 at the Student Activities Office desk, located on the lower level of the C. Charles Jackson Campus Center. Tickets are $7 for adults, $5 for students and senior citizens, and free for Gustavus students and staff. Only 49 tickets are available for each performance. Latecomers will not be seated.
Directed by Henry MacCarthy, The Lesson is a masterpiece of the theatre of the absurd and the surrealist avant garde, pushing the boundaries of morbid humor into the depths of darkness. A student, eager to learn quickly to qualify for her total doctorate exam, attends a private lesson in the house of a well-known young professor and is guided through the basics of arithmetic, linguistics and comparative philology, only to be interrupted by the maid who warns the professor to be cautious and avoid philology, which “can only lead to calamity!” The plot unfolds as the characters wrestle through language, the ultimate instrument of power, which eventually consumes them in complete destruction.
MacCarthy’s daring re-invention of Ionesco’s challenging drama provides audiences an intimate experience with the play. The proximity of the audience to the performers, aided by the set design by student designer Brian Pelach, allows audience members to be immersed in the world created on stage. The students involved with the production have been given a unique opportunity to bring this avant garde play into the Gustavus Theatre repertoire.
The cast features students Jordan Klitzke, Bethany Ringdal, Shane Jensen, Christine Dornbush, and Kelly Nelson. The lighting design for The Lesson is by Terena Wilkens, and costume design by Andrea Gross.
Leave a Reply