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Kay Kostopoulos and Marty Pistone in SST's The Importance of Being Earnest.
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Ruth Marks in SST's The Importance of Being Earnest.
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Marty Pistone and David Raymond in SST's The Importance of Being Earnest.
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Courtney Walsh as Winnie in SST's 2013 Happy Days.
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Courtney Walsh as Winnie in SST's Happy Days.
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He’s Funny That Way: Oscar Wilde & Samuel Beckett
Stanford Summer Theater 2013 Festival, July 8-August 25
Stanford Summer Theater (SST) celebrates its fifteenth season with an explosion of comedy – comedy with a difference. We meet two great Irish dramatists, Oscar Wilde and Samuel Beckett, in a festival featuring productions of The Importance of Being Earnest and Happy Days. There is also a free Monday night film series on “apocalyptic comedy,” a community symposium on Wilde and Beckett, and a Stanford Continuing Studies summer course titled Wilde, Beckett, and the Split Visions of Comedy.
The Importance of Being Earnest July 18 – August 11 Thursdays – Saturdays at 8 pm, Sunday matinees at 2 pm Pigott Theater, Memorial Auditorium Click here to purchase ticketsRecognized as one of the funniest comedies in the English language, Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest dazzles with ironic wit, comic invention, razor-sharp subtlety and bold servings of humor. Wilde’s comic genius creates a world of sheer delight, where manners matter, romance rules and laughter has the final say.
Directed by Bay-Area legend Lynne Soffer, Wilde’s masterpiece stars SST favorites Marty Pistone (Curse of the Starving Class, Restoration Comedy), Kay Kostopoulos (Under Milk Wood, Electra, The Lover), Courtney Walsh (The Wanderings of Odysseus, Oedipus, Faith Healer), Jessica Waldman and Don DeMico (Curse of the Starving Class), as well as new company members Austin Caldwell, Ruth Marks, and David Raymond.
The Importance of Being Earnest is stylish comedy at its best.
Happy Days August 15 – August 25 Thursdays – Saturdays at 8 pm, Sunday matinees at 2 pm Nitery Theater, Old Union Click here to purchase ticketsWe follow Wilde’s romantic comedy of manners with Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days, an extraordinary comedy of wasting away. The irrepressible Winnie sits buried to her waist in a mound of sand, trying to engage her slightly more mobile husband, Willie. In spite of growing trials and tribulations, Winnie carries on bravely, foolishly, winningly. Why is this so funny? How can Beckett make us laugh in spite of ourselves, succumbing to that “brief gale of laughter when we happen to see the old joke again?”
Beckett delivers a theatrical experience unparalleled in its comic precision and deep humor. SST veteran Courtney Walsh (The Wanderings of Odysseus, Oedipus, Faith Healer) takes on the demanding role of Winnie, with Don DeMico as Willie, in a production that travels to Paris and Montpellier, France in the fall.
Monday Night Film Series Apocalyptic Comedy Mondays, July 8 – August 19 7 pm (no admission after 7:15 pm) Annenberg Auditorium, Cummings Art Building FREEThe free film series focuses on the comic potential in even the most desperate of situations. Stanford faculty and SST company members introduce the screenings.
July 8 Big Business (Laurel and Hardy) and Dr. Strangelove (Kubrick) Discussant: Scott Bukatmen, Professor of Film Studies, Stanford July 15 One, Two, Three (Wilder) Discussant: Adrian Daub, Professor of German Studies July 22 Hard Luck (Buster Keaton), and Duck Soup (Marx Brothers) Discussant: Ken Fields, Professor of English July 29 Catch-22 (Nichols) Discussant: Rush Rehm, Artistic Director, SST August 5 The Great Dictator (Chaplin) Discussant: Adrian Daub, Professor of German Studies August 12 In Bruges (McDonagh) Discussant: Tobias Wolff, Professor of English August 19 Seven Beauties (Wertmuller) Discussant: Inga Pierson, Ph.D. Candidate, French and Italian Continuing Studies Community Symposium He’s Funny That Way: Oscar Wilde & Samuel Beckett Saturday, August 3 9:30 am – 5 pm, lunch included Pigott Theater, Memorial Auditorium Click here to purchase tickets, advance registration requiredOn Saturday August 3 in Stanford’s intimate Piggot Theater, Continuing Studies and SST collaborate in an all-day symposium, He’s Funny That Way: Oscar Wilde and Samuel Beckett. Explore these amazing Irish playwrights, both of whom aim at the comic heart of things but pursue radically different approaches in getting there.
Charles Junkerman, the dean of Continuing Studies and associate provost, will deliver the keynote address. Other lecturers include Professors William Eddelman and Alice Rayner (Emeriti, Theater and Performance Studies), Petra Dierkes-Thrun (Lecturer, English Department), SST artistic director Rush Rehm, and guest artists Lynne Soffer, Marty Pistone and Courtney Walsh.
The incomparable Geoff Hoyle (whose previous work with SST includes Waiting for Godot, The Chairs, Lysistrata, and Translations) will perform parts of his marvelous one-man show Geezer, not to be missed!
The symposium also includes staged scenes from the plays of Wilde and Beckett (performed by the SST company), morning coffee and muffins, a delicious catered lunch on the “left bank” of Memorial Auditorium and afternoon tea and cookies (with, perhaps, the odd cucumber sandwich!). Tickets ($90 each) are available at continuingstudies.stanford.edu. Advance registration is required.
