{"id":245528,"date":"2012-11-09T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-11-09T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/long-road-to-ion-theatre\/"},"modified":"2012-11-09T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-11-09T08:00:00","slug":"long-road-to-ion-theatre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/long-road-to-ion-theatre\/","title":{"rendered":"Long road to ion theatre"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hillcrest company gains rights to \u2018The Little Flower of East Orange\u2019 for 7th season<\/strong><\/p>\n

Por Charlene Baldridge | Reportero SDUN<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Long
(l to r) Trina Kaplan and Jeffrey Jones from \u201cThe Little Flower of East Orange\u201d (Courtesy ion theatre)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The New York Times calls playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis a \u201csavage sentimentalist.\u201d And what is more sentimental than writing a memory-play about family? As for onstage savagery, there\u2019s no time like the present to check it out.<\/p>\n

After trying for three years, Hillcrest\u2019s ion theatre company, known for its own brand of savagery, at last obtained rights to Guirgis\u2019s 2008 Broadway play, \u201cThe Little Flower of East Orange.\u201d The production, which critic Ben Brantley said possesses \u201cmad operatic grandeur,\u201d plays at ion\u2019s BLKBOX Sunday, Nov. 11 to Dec. 8, with opening night on Nov. 17. It is co-directed by Glenn Paris and Claudio Raygoza, partners in the theater and in life.<\/p>\n

Guirgis, who is a co-artistic director of New York\u2019s LAByrinth Theatre, also wrote \u201cOur Lady of 121st Street,\u201d \u201cThe Last Days of Judas Iscariot,\u201d \u201cJesus Hopped the \u2018A\u2019 Train,\u201d \u201cIn Arabia We\u2019d All Be Kings\u201d and, most recently, \u201cThe Motherfucker With the Hat.\u201d In 2005 Al Germani\u2019s Lynx Theatre produced \u201c\u2018A\u2019 Train\u201d and \u201cIn Arabia,\u201d and \u201cOur Lady\u201d was seen at the Adams Avenue Studio. In 2010 Triad produced \u201cJudas Iscariot\u201d at 10th Avenue Theatre. All of Guirgis\u2019 full-length plays except \u201cThe Hat\u201d and \u201cLittle Flower\u201d have yet to be seen in San Diego.<\/p>\n

\u201cGuirgis is a terrific writer, very New York, with a real gift for writing,\u201d Paris said. \u201cHe writes provocative plays with tough issues and tough characters. This is a mother-son play. The mother is ailing and the son returns [from rehab] in an attempt to resolve issues relating to past trauma.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paris said the theme of failed resolution is one of the reasons he identifies with the play. \u201cI\u2019m grown up enough to have shared lives with others who have had issues, were unable to resolve them and moved on to the next life embittered. That\u2019s tragic,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Impelled by her son Danny (played by Jeffrey Jones), the mother (Trina Kaplan) \u2013 the \u201clittle flower\u201d of the title \u2013 moves toward catharsis through exploring her childhood. In his review, New York Times writer Ben Brantley called \u201cThe Little Flower of East Orange\u201d a \u201ctale of mother love and its discontents.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGuirgis writes from a distinct lack of convention [with] lots of pieces that depart from the norm,\u201d Paris said. \u201cWe refer to it as a scrapbook. Danny is the narrator. The action begins in the present, moves backward in time, and then jumps forward again.\u201d<\/p>\n

He refers to the play as a \u201cBig Secret\u201d production, meaning audiences are in for a \u201cwild, unconventional\u201d ending, he said, although he will not give away any spoilers. \u201cThe secret is not revealed until late in the play, which is \u2026 written in differing styles and is a challenge for both directors and actors.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is no doubt that Paris and Raygoza love this work after becoming acquainted with it initially through reviews of the LAByrinth production. When the play moved to Broadway, they were able to obtain the script, which they have read and discussed ever since. Twice they got production rights, and then Guirgis decided he wanted to keep working on the play.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe think it\u2019s because the play is so deeply personal for him,\u201d Paris said of the delays. \u201cThis year as we put the season together, we again phoned his agent. Ultimately, Stephen [Guirgis] said that we could do the play [as is]. We\u2019re very excited. I think he was impressed by our persistence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Others in the company are Yolanda Franklin, Diep Huynh, Catalina Maynard, Melinda Miller, Durwood Murray and Walter Ritter, as well as Paris and Raygoza.<\/p>\n

After previews on Sunday, Nov. 11, Thursday, Nov. 15 and Friday, Nov. 16, \u201cLittle Flower of East Orange\u201d plays Nov. 17 and 24 at 4 and 8 p.m.; Nov. 23 at 8 p.m.; and Nov. 25 at 4 p.m. Following those dates, the production runs Thursdays and Fridays at 8 p.m., and Saturdays at 4 and 8 p.m. from Nov.\u00a0 29 \u2013 Dec. 8. The BLKBOX theater is located at 3704 Sixth Ave. For more information or tickets visit iontheatre.com or call 619-600-5020.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hillcrest company gains rights to \u2018The Little Flower of East Orange\u2019 for 7th season By Charlene Baldridge | SDUN Reporter The New York Times calls playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis a \u201csavage sentimentalist.\u201d And what is more sentimental than writing a memory-play about family? As for onstage savagery, there\u2019s no time like the present to check […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":245529,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"Long road to ion theatre","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11549,11547,11551,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-245528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-features","category-news","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}