Monday, January 16, 2012
Sean Graney’s ‘These Seven Sicknesses,’ Sophocles at Flea
NYTimes.com: In the spirit of “Gatz” (7 hours) and “The Demons” (12 hours), Mr. Graney’s “These Seven Sicknesses,” which begins performances on Thursday at the Flea Theater in TriBeCa, is something of a marathon. Set in a modern hospital-like space, the work is an adaptation of the seven Sophocles plays that still exist in their entirety: “Oedipus Rex,” “Oedipus at Colonus” and “Antigone” (known as the Theban plays); as well as “Ajax,” “Women of Trachis,” “Electra” and “Philoctetes.” With two meal breaks, one for dinner and one for dessert, the night will clock in at about five hours. Mr. Graney, 39, said the plays in their original forms could run as long as 12 hours back to back.
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It sounds like this guy has got an interesting theater version of Warhol's Factory going on, with his 4,000 foot space for theater artists to "hang out productively." That is what I would like to read a full article about. How do you even run a space like that today? With that kind of starting point, though, it sounds like the aesthetic of this 7 play fusion would be really interesting and nontraditional. Because the actors themselves are serving dinner to the guests, I would like to know what kind of set up the theater will be-- whether or not the audience will continue to be immersed in the performance like it sounds like the dinner is. The dinner/desert is definitely a good idea, though, because an uninterrupted 5 hours of Sophocles seems more than a little dense and unaccessible to most audiences.
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