Marie and Bruce
by Wallace Shawn

Ticket Price

Pay What You Can

We Suggest $35
More If You Have it
Less if you don't

Location

The Catastrophic Theatre

1117 East Frwy

Houston, Tx 77002

Venue Info

Performances

Nov 22, 2013 -

Dec 14, 2013

“Darling, why is it that whenever we have a conversation you always feel sick?”

Cast & Personnel

Director

Jason Nodler

Assistant Director

Noel Bowers

Cast

The Play

Marie and Bruce have been married a very long time. Maybe ten years, maybe six months. Either way, a very long time.

The play begins on the morning that Marie plans to leave Bruce. They wake up. They have their coffee. We see the very different people they become when alone. They meet at a party. They go to dinner. Seemingly trivial moments in their relationship accumulate like ice on a power line.

The Catastrophic Theatre’s love of Wallace Shawn is well documented by its hit productions of Our Late Night and The Designated Mourner, each of which was declared a “can’t miss” production by major critics in Houston. Audiences returned again and again, armed with friends.

Jason Nodler, Tamarie Cooper, and Charlie Scott first collaborated on this play in 1999 with Infernal Bridegroom Productions.

In the Houston Press review of the 1999 production Lee Williams wrote:

“Infernal Bridegroom’s riotous production of his Marie and Bruce is a perfect entree into the spiny wit of Shawn’s verbal imagination… Shawn’s message is undeniably bleak, but it is also very, very funny… We talk and talk and giggle and curse, but no matter what words, what sounds we use, we can never find our way into each other’s hearts.”

In special celebration of their 20 years making theatre together, Nodler, Cooper, and Scott will reprise their roles as director and lead actors in Marie and Bruce, a devastating comedy about a terrible marriage that will probably last forever. Sounds like our kind of holiday play.

The Playwright

WALLACE SHAWN is an American actor, voice actor, stand-up comedian, singer, dancer, playwright, and essayist, best known for appearing in film roles, such as Wally Shawn in the Louis Malle-directed comedy-drama My Dinner with Andre (1981), Vizzini in The Princess Bride (1987), Ezra in The Haunted Mansion, providing the voice of Rex in the Toy Story franchise, providing the voice of Gilbert Huph in The Incredibles (2004), and providing the voice of Calico in Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore (2010). He also starred in a variety of television series, including Gossip Girl and recurring appearances as Grand Nagus Zek in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993-99). His plays include The Designated Mourner, Aunt Dan and Lemon, and Grasses of a Thousand Colors. He also co-wrote the screenplay for My Dinner with Andre with Andre Gregory, and he scripted Vanya on 42nd Street, a film adaptation of Anton Chekov's play Uncle Vanya. His latest film from June 2014 was A Master Builder based on the play by Henrik Ibsen.

"A dangerous writer. A very rare species. He tells people things about themselves that they don't want to know."
- Joseph Papp on Wallace Shawn

The Catastrophic Theatre's love of Wallace Shawn is well documented by its hit productions of Our Late Night and The Designated Mourner, each of which was declared a "can't miss" production by major critics in Houston. Audiences returned again and again, armed with friends.

Shawn is best known for his character roles in such films as The Princess Bride, Clueless, and Annie Hall as well as his more serious turns in the films My Dinner with Andre and Vanya on 42th Street, but acting for him is something of a day job. His primary mode of expression is his writing and he is a writer unlike any other.