Blood and Cake Opens Wednesday!

Our next show, Blood and Cake, opens this Wednesday, December 8th, at The Tank. If you haven't gotten your tickets, yet, you should visit Brown Paper Tickets RIGHT NOW and get them before they're gone! 

Now, if I may, I want to wax a little poetic about this play, and especially its writer, Julian Mesri, as this very exciting year that I've had has been book ended by his plays. 

In January, Tank theatre curator Rafael Gallegos brought this little (in terms of set and number of actors) play to The Tank called The King in Exile. The premise of the play is that a King, having been ousted by his subjects into exile, decides that if kings can be made accountable, then he's going to become God instead... simply by declaring himself such. The premise seemed... well, cute, but not that intriguing, but I saw the play on Rafael's recommendation. And it was completely engaging! It was clever, and full of word play, but not didactic, and it was absurdist drama without being misanthropic. Julian's perception of human nature is that, while our flaws are definitely FAULTS and not be celebrated, that we are not evil for having them. He's very generous to his characters without ever letting them off the hook for their failings. I really felt, after seeing King, that I had witnessed work by a bright and unusual talent. 

Julian and I became friends, and when he came to me and told me about the play that would eventually be Blood and Cake, I was very, very excited to put it up. We took long walks and sat around over beers and talked about these characters, Pox and Scratch, and making these medieval professionals live in a sitcom world. Something I had loved so much about King in Exile had been the non-time of it: many of the characters wore contemporary clothing, but the king himself had a giant broad sword, and the way the revolution was framed was very naive in a way that we don't currently think of states being overthrown. The entire setting was a symbolic device, rather than a period piece, and I loved the idea of a court jester living amongst an old Westinghouse refrigerator and calling for Chinese food on his cell phone. 

But aside from what Kevin calls the "reckless anachronisms" (which he means in the best way), Blood and Cake is just a really funny, really charming two hander with excellent actors in it. Austin Tidwell, whom we first discovered when we saw King in Exile (he was the King) is fantastic as Pox, the executioner, with his deep-as-a-well voice and his deft knitting, and Ben Mann, who normally works on the OTHER side of the stage with Kevin and myself, is as delightful a rogueish, resentfully erudite court jester (complete with his very real London accent) as you'd ever want. And the end... 

Well, you'll have to come and see for yourself, now, won't you? 

xx
Suzan 

Comments

[julian]

dec. 8, not dec. 15!!!!

[Magic Futurebox]

Thanks, Julian-- edited!