Time Flies.SIX SHORT PLAYS BY DAVID IVES
A collection of thirteen witty and wildly original one-acts teeming with hilarious characters pondering life’s metaphysical questions.
Zany, smart, and utterly fresh, this collection brings together all the one-acts from the off-Broadway hits Mere Mortals and Lives of the Saints. The follow-up collection of the award-winning All in the Timing, Time Flies is magical, eccentric one-act comedy at its very best. THE STORIES:
SURE THING. Two people meet in a cafe and find their way through a conversational minefield as an offstage bell interrupts their false starts, gaffes, and faux pas on the way to falling in love. WORDS, WORDS, WORDS recalls the philosophical adage that three monkeys typing into infinity will sooner or later produce Hamlet and asks: What would monkeys talk about at their typewriters? THE UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE brings together Dawn, a young woman with a stutter, and Don, the creator and teacher of Unamunda, a wild comic language. Their lesson sends them off into a dazzling display of hysterical verbal pyrotechnics—and, of course, true love. MERE MORTALS eavesdrops on a lunch hour as three construction workers share increasingly amazing secrets of their past... namely that they are really the Lindbergh baby, the son of Czar Nicholas II of Russia, and the reincarnation of Marie Antoinette. THE PHILADELPHIA presents a young man in a restaurant who has fallen into "a Philadelphia," a Twilight Zone-like state in which he cannot get anything he asks for. VARIATIONS ON THE DEATH OF TROTSKY shows us the Russian revolutionary on the day of his demise, desperately trying to cope with the mountain-climber's axe he's discovered in his head. “Ives [is] wizardly . . . magical and funny . . . a master of language. He uses words for their meanings, sounds and associations, spinning conceits of a sort I’ve not seen or heard before. He’s an original.”
—Vincent Canby, The New York Times “Hilarious . . . brilliantly calculated . . . The fragility of communication is pointed up with engaging skill . . . and the virtue of character.” —Clive Barnes, The New York Post “David Ives [is] perhaps the funniest writer of short plays in America today.” --The Columbus Dispatch “David Ives is the one. I cannot imagine a time when a dramatist delighted and surprised me more. . . . Cleverly accessible and humane . . . these postcards from the weirdo edge are a rare treat that only makes one wish for more.” --The New York Observer “Delectable!” --The Wall Street Journal |
CAST & CREATIVE TEAM
SURE THING
Directed by Adam Brazier Betty: Melissa Kramer Bill: Adam Brazier VARIATIONS ON THE DEATH OF TROTSKY
Directed by Mark Fraser Trotsky: Graham Putnam Mrs. Trotsky: Catherine O'Brien Ramon: Fraser McCallum THE UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE
Directed by Catherine O'Brien Don: Donnie Macphee Dawn: Becca Griffin Young Man: Adam Brazier MERE MORTALS
Directed by Adam Brazier Joe: Donnie Macphee Charlie: Lennie MacPherson Frank: Graham Putnam THE PHILADELPHIA
Directed by Marlane O'Brien Alan: Adam Brazier Mark: Graham Putnam Waitress: Melissa Kramer WORDS, WORDS, WORDS
Directed by Mark Fraser Kafka: Lennie MacPherson Milton: Fraser McCallum Swift: Becca Griffin |
Production Photos.
Photography by Rosie Shaw
SURE THING
VARIATIONS ON THE DEATH OF TROTSKY
UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE
MERE MORTALS
THE PHILADELPHIA
WORDS, WORDS, WORDS
