07/08 limited season

written by will eno
directed by les waters
thrust stage
march 14–april 13, 2008
american premiere

running time: 75 minutes, no intermission

the art

TRAGEDY: a tragedy. A comedy. The sun—despite its shining record—has finally set. Reporters descend in a flurry of questions and commentary, while the governor urges calm. It’s a mournful and comic tale of everyday apocalypse, a savage look at all of us in the dark. “Will Eno is a Samuel Beckett for the Jon Stewart generation,” proclaims the New York Times, calling his off-Broadway hit Thom Pain (based on nothing), an “acidly funny meditation on the indelible sorrows of life.” As with his sold-out runs of The Pillowman and The Glass Menagerie, Obie Award-winning director Les Waters mines the humor and heartache of TRAGEDY.

the artists

Will Eno penned the smash hit Thom Pain (based on nothing), which played for nearly two years off Broadway and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. “The Brooklyn-based Mr. Eno has won scads of major fellowships,” says the New York Times—from the Edward F. Albee Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, Princeton University and other eminent institutions.

Les Waters won an Obie Award for Big Love. The New York Times placed his production of Eurydice among the Top 10 Plays of 2006, and Time Out New York named his off-Broadway Apparition one of the Best 5 Plays of 2005. His recent hits at Berkeley Rep include Eurydice, The Glass Menagerie and The Pillowman.

the buzz

“One of the funniest apocalypses of our time…Tragedy takes the subversive potential of comedy to extremes, undermining not only the trustworthiness of authority figures but also the notion that words can convey meaning at all. That Eno does this with remarkable wit and astonishing facility is a source of considerable hilarity and some frustration in Les Waters’ skillfully staged and richly performed American premiere”—San Francisco Chronicle

“A wickedly funny satire of modern American life and the solace we seek in the ultimately meaningless words and rituals…In this short (70-minute), skewering comedy / tragedy, the whipping person du jour is television news and it’s nightly custom of packaging the world’s ills in a bundle squeezed around sports and weather.”—Contra Costa Times

“Thrums with an undercurrent of anarchy that’s as uproariously funny as it is profoundly sad…The playwright so ferociously captures the surreal banality of television, the lonely pools of silence welling up between stammered inanities that it takes a few beats to realize Tragedy really has less to do with the media than the message.”—San Jose Mercury News

“A guffaw-inducing satire on media ineptitude…Les Waters’ stylishly minimalist production for Berkeley Repertory Theatre reveals that a news report about an event as seemingly unnewsworthy as day turning into night is symptomatic of something much more disturbing. That’s where the tragic element comes in. It’s really about humanity’s inability to express through words, let alone come to terms with its self-destructive streak…The gravitas of the performers’ speaking style lends an extra absurd quality to Eno’s already absurd lines.”—NPR’s Artery

“Mr. Eno’s voice is so assuredly his own, simultaneously delicate and audacious in its measurements of poetry, philosophy and Monty Pythonesque silliness”—New York Times

“He strikes me as being the real thing, a real playwright. He takes every chance. And Will keeps the voice his own: he has an awareness of the human condition I wish more people his age had.”—Edward Albee

the dates

back to top

 

---

press photos

 

---

restaurant sponsor

 

---

season sponsors