This is an Open Thread / Coffee Hour and all topics of conversation are welcome. Today's suggested topic is the Heartbreak House by George Bernard Shaw.
The theater company I belong to, Actors Ensemble of Berkeley, produced this play last year and I just got the video up on YouTube. Beyond the fold let me share some pictures and some of my thoughts from our production.
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This is an Open Thread / Coffee Hour and all topics of conversation are welcome. Today's Coffee Hour is brought to you by plays such as Heartbreak House that should serve as a warning to us of what can happen when money becomes more important than empathy.
There is a lot to be appreciated in George Bernard Shaw's complex play, Heartbreak House. It is a comic farce in addition to being a cautionary tale. Using a dinner party as a vehicle Shaw endeavors to both indite and identify the "complacency of the public" in the face of impending national disaster.
On the eve of World War I, Ellie Dunn, her father, and her fiancé are invited to one of Hesione Hushabye’s infamous dinner parties. Unfortunately, her fiancé is a scoundrel, her father’s a bumbling prig, and she’s actually in love with Hector, Hesione’s husband. This bold mix of farce and tragedy lampoons British society as it blithely sinks towards disaster.
From Wikipedia: Heartbreak House
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Michele Delattre as Hesione Hushabye
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Actors Ensemble's production of Heartbreak House, Directed by Robert Estes, featured one of the most outstanding casts we have ever assembled. Each actor was perfect for the role they played.
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Keith Jefferds as Boss Mangan
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The house could arguably be a metaphorical reference to a ship which must be guided capably, not only by its crew, but also its passengers. Each character in the house represents some facet of British society, Mangan being the nouveau riche capitalist, Hesione the flighty Bohemian, Ellie a struggling member of the lower class and so on.
From Wikipedia: Heartbreak House
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Jeff Trescott as Captain Shotover, Taylor Diffenderfer as Ellie Dunn, and Amaka Izuchi as Lady Utterword
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Captain Shotover plays the jester in this play, speaking truth to power. His house is modeled after a ship and the set design of the Actors Ensemble production reflects this. Ever present is the captain's observations and prescriptions, "Navigation. Learn it and live; or leave it and be damned."
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Stanley Spenger as Hector Hushabye, Taylor Diffenderfer as Ellie Dunn, and Michele Delattre as Hesione Hushabye
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It is the ship of state that is in jeopardy here, and Shaw makes it clear that the of the "public" and government are unable to pilot the nation away from the rocks or war.
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Amaka Izuchi as Lady Utterword and Braian Mc Manus as Randall Untterword
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Matthew Surrence as Mazzini Dunn, Taylor Diffenderfer as Ellie Dunn, and Michele Delattre as Hesione Hushabye
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Joseph O'Loughlin as The Burglar and Lynn Sotos as Nurse Guinness
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Our production of this play takes on greater significance as America is suffering from the same uneven concentration of money and power that Heartbreak House is portraying.
My question is, "Why haven't we learned our lessons from history?"