The LAB Space kicks off the year with David Ives’ delightful comedy Shorts.
Ives, a prolific American playwright, is best known for his clever one-act plays that highlight the interplay of language, existential imagination, word play conundrums and more.
The six “shorts” were chosen by directors Ting Kao (高詩婷) and Andrew Chau (周厚安).
Photo courtesy of Cheng Yi-lee
Who would not wish for a reset button for conversations that go awry? In the Sure Thing, a man and a woman meeting for the first time have that luck. Each time their conversation turns negative, a bell rings and they must start again.
With Degas, C’est moi, a man wakes up one morning and decides he should be the great French Impressionist painter Edgar Degas. But is the world ready for him?
In The Philadelphia, a different man finds himself in a twilight zone where he discovers that he can only get what he wants by asking for the opposite.
The Russian revolutionary Trotsky finds himself being killed over and over again in Variations on the Death of Trotsky. However it is in his conversations with his assassin that he is able to come up with memorable profound statements.
A scam artist invents a new imaginary language, Unamunda, and charges people to learn it in The Universal Language. All goes well until he falls in love with one of his students.
Words, Words, Words. Three chimpanzees named Milton, Swift and Kafka are locked in a room with typewriters to hopefully create Shakespeare’s Hamlet through their random typing. What they discuss while doing this is the key.
This production sees the returning faces of Victor Stevenson (Tuesdays with Morrie) and Sharon Landon (A Perfect Ganesh) from last year. Season tickets are available at: www.accupass.com/go/lab2016
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