The Onomatopoeia Theatre Company
Onomatopoeia Theatre Season 4 – “Playing In Literature & The Absurd“
For our 4th Season we at The Onomatopoeia Theatre Company have decided to focus on the importance of “play” and fun in theatre. People can play games together, musicians play instruments, actors play roles… Even literature written for the stage is defined as “a play”. We are interested in all of these definitions play. But we don’t just want to stop there! A play or playing comes to life in real time. It is something that is unique to a moment. We want to analyze “play” in all of its forms, in ways that are tangible yet indefinable.
Using French Theatre and the Absurd as our canvas we are trying to look at the rules of “play” and what can be learned from “pretend experience”. Each of these productions are comedic, fantastic adventures and our audiences and our performers should smile and enjoy themselves as they experience these plays. They are fun shows with lots of wit, style and flair. Yet they are also shows that hold deeper questions as well.
We want to create a fun and safe environment as we investigate the deeper issues and questions that these stories possess and what lessons they have. Over the course of our next season our goal is to use this safe environment to explore “play” as well. Not only what an audience can learn from seeing play but what can a performer learn from playing? What can be learned from interaction and making a choice? Why are there rules to play? And what happens when we break those rules?
Our fourth season includes:
Rhinoceros
by Eugene Ionesco
April 10th – April 25th, 2015
at
The Gene Frankel Theatre
24 Bond Street, New York, NY 10012
An Absurdist Journey Of Transformation & Identity
A small peaceful town in provincial France has a big problem. A pair of rhinoceroses has just arrived and they are tearing up the neighborhood! What is even more bizarre is that these are not ordinary rhinoceroses but people who have been victims of "rhinoceritis." Or is it something else entirely? Why are people really turning into rhinoceroses and what is Ionesco trying to tell us about society?
Arsène Lupin VS Sherlock Holmes
by Victor Darlay & Henry de Gorsse
based on characters created by Maurice Leblanc & Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
adapted by Thomas R. Gordon
July 10th - Aug 1st, 2015
at
The Gene Frankel Theatre
24 Bond Street, New York, NY 10012
An Interactive Game Of Cat & Mouse
The gentleman thief Arsène Lupin has stolen the Sultan Diamond from under the nose of the French Police and Sherlock Holmes has sworn to recover the stone and arrest his rival – all in less than a week! Will Lupin get away with the jewel or will Holmes be able to outwit the stylish bandit? Either outcome is possible in this production as France’s greatest thief challenges Britain’s greatest detective!
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead
by Tom Stoppard
Nov 6th – 21st, 2015
at
The Gene Frankel Theatre
24 Bond Street, New York, NY 10012
A Comedic Odyssey Of Theatre & Reality
Two minor characters from the play "Hamlet", Rosencrantz & Guildenstern, are unaware of their scripted lives and are unable to deviate from them. Will Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (or Guildenstern and Rosencrantz) manage to discover the source of Hamlet's malaise as requested by the new king? Are the answers as important as the questions? Will the mysterious players who are strolling around the castle reveal the secrets they evidently know? Can we ever really know what's going on? And whose serve is it?