Apollinaire Theatre Company to present three absurdist comedies
Chelsea’s Apollinaire Theatre Company will be staging classic works from the Theater of the Absurd: The Wedding on the Eiffel Tower by Jean Cocteau, Jack, or The Submission by Eugene Ionesco, and Humulus the Mute by Jean Anouilh. The performances are free (yes, free!) and will be performed at Mary O’Malley Park at Admiral Hill on the Chelsea waterfront.
The company of 19 actors will play a multitude of roles in the three productions.
In Wedding, two human phonographs narrate a story, providing the voices, while the other actors mime the actions described by the phonographs. It takes place during a wedding at the end of the first world war, where a photographer is taking pictures of the bizarre guests.
Jack follows a man named, of course, Jack and the members of his family, of which every member is also named Jack. Jack weds Roberta in an arranged marriage, but when the love goes cold, he finds happiness with—who else?—another Roberta.
Humulus charts the adventures of an impassioned young man afflicted with a very strange malady: he can only speak one word a day.
All of these plays are classics of absurdist theater and stand as enduring testaments to the comedic genius and philosophical insights of Cocteau, Ionesco, and Anouilh.
Performances run July 8 - 25.