Eddie Goes to Poetry City
Performances
Feb 10, 2023 -
Mar 4, 2023
Cast & Personnel
Director
Assistant Director
Cast
Scenic Design
Costume Design
Lighting Design
Sound Design
Prop Design
Stage Manager
Deck Crew
Scenic Artist
The Play
“You’re a mirror, Eddie.”
Eddie dreams of escape—from the office where he suffers at the hands of his co-workers, from a doctor whose treatments seem far worse than any possible disease, perhaps from even the play itself! He dreams of escaping to Poetry City, a place he imagines to be Paradise. When he arrives, however, he finds that Poetry City “melts language,” and totally disrupts the normal laws of cause- and-effect. Entirely disoriented, Eddie attempts to navigate this new and bewildering reality, and slowly comes to consider that his confusion, struggles, and failures may comprise a sort of poetry in themselves and may provide access to Paradise after all. Not in Poetry City, but right here and now, hidden in between moments, but accessible to those who know where to look. Foreman’s plays, particularly under the direction of Catastrophic core artist Greg Dean, are imagination machines. They provoke laughter or even tears from places so deep within, you didn’t know they were there. They poke and yank at the nerves and thrust you, id-first, into waking dreams. When you wander back into the world, you’ll find yourself awake in ways you hadn’t realized possible and you might find yourself in a new world, one vibrating with new possibilities.The Playwright
RICHARD FOREMAN founded the Ontological-Hysteric Theater in New York City in 1968. The avant-garde playwright has won multiple Obie awards, a MacArthur Fellowship, and a Lifetime achievement award from the National endowment for the Arts. Foreman's dramatic works are driven by the notion of a constant reawakening of the audience; he is one of the major artists creating substantial works in the avant garde performance movement.
Richard Foreman has been described as, one of the most original minds ever to grace the American Theatre. Instead of focusing on conflict to shape his theatrical structure, Foreman's work draws on design, text and the live performance of actors equally, to create a different focus and relationship between the stage and audience. He describes his works as "total theater". In addition to many plays, he has written books and operas. Foreman has gained acclaim as director for such productions as Bertolt Brecht's The Threepenny Opera at Lincoln Center and the premiere of Suzan-Lori Parks's Venus at the Public Theater. The New York Times calls him “the reigning philosopher vaudevillian of the New York avant-garde...creating fractured dreamscapes in which life is the banana cream pie that keeps hitting you in the face.”
In the Media
Review: The Very Trippy EDDIE GOES TO POETRY CITY At Catastrophic Theatre
February 14, 2023 |
Broadway World
| Brett Cullum
You won’t find a more technically stunning or well acted show in Houston right now.
Thrilling New Production Opens at Houston’s Boldest Theatre
February 12, 2023 |
Houston Chronicle
| Chris Vognar
Preview: Dreams of Escape at Eddie Goes to Poetry City on Stage at Catastrophic Theatre
February 6, 2023 |
Houston Press
| Margaret Downing
There’s something about avant-garde playwright Richard Foreman’s work that actor/director/designer Greg Dean finds deeply moving and funny.
