Posts Tagged ‘The Lost Ones’
Showmen Showdown: The Controversy Over ‘The Lost Ones’
Thespians have a rich history of bickering. My favorite dramatic duel happened in 1830, at the opening night of Victor Hugo’s Hernani in Paris. Hugo, a romantic, had blatantly ignored a number of theretofore sacred theatrical conventions — a plot that takes place over the course of a single day, for example, and in a single location — things that those of the neoclassical persuasion held dear. So dear, in fact, that at the premiere a brawl erupted between the two theoretical camps, classicists hissing and spitting at romantics, bohemians bludgeoning the bourgeoisie with mockeries, food, even fists. The fighting went on for weeks, forcing Hugo to enlist volunteer bodyguards. If this is what you got after a few infractions of Aristotle’s rules, imagine what those classicists would’ve thought of, oh I don’t know, Bare Breasted Women Sword Fighting, or My Fabulous Sex Life?
I tell this anecdote to broach an unfortunate matter which warrants only brief mention on this blog — a percolating dispute between two Washington theater companies over a production of The Lost Ones that I reviewed (quite positively) this week.
The current production comes courtesy of Spooky Action Theater. Directed by Robert Richard Henrich, performed by Carter Jahncke, it’s an adaptation of a short story by Samuel Beckett called Le dépeupleur. Between 1999 and 2004, SCENA Theater mounted several productions of a similar piece, also called The Lost Ones‚ in D.C. and in Europe, directed by Robert McNamara, also starring Jahncke (and at one point showing in the same space it currently occupies, The Warehouse).
