Word: orpheus
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...written, and that a painted triptych figures prominently and mysteriously in the narrative. What this plethora of threes may signify is anyone's guess, but those more interested in words than in integers will face a calculated problem. Specifically, is it possible to understand and enjoy The Lyre of Orpheus without having read The Rebel Angels (1981) and What's Bred in the Bone (1985), the books that lead...
Mark Prascak, who set Peer(less) Gynt in the Adams House pool last month and painted his set--and actors--green in last year's The Dream Play, directs the myth of Orpheus and Euridyce mainly for laughs...
Cocteau wove overt references to popular culture into his adaptation of the classic. Hints of thrillers, dime romances and detective films abound in the tale of the poet Orpheus's (Jim May) descent into Hades and return with his bride Eurydice (Magdalena Hernandez). Prascak, perhaps true to Cocteau's intentions, begins the play with a Madonna medley and transforms Death (Jennifer Lyn Bader) into a lovely Material Girl in white...
...most part, Prascak maintains Cocteau's scene structure and characters. His major switch is to replace a talking horse with a small Oscar the Grouch figure, the same Muppet that starred in The Dream Play. This horse-turned-Muppet opens the play with cryptic messages that provide Orpheus with poetic inspiration. It is helpful to keep in mind that this--like much of what else is odd in the production--is weird thanks to Cocteau, not Prascak...
...trombone in the high school band to avoid sports and was president of the square dance club. After working his way through East Texas State University by teaching high school drama in Galveston, he moved to New York City in 1955. He staged a revival of Tennessee Williams' Orpheus Descending and became a friend and protege of Williams', and later of Robert Penn Warren's and William Styron's. Much of his work has been literary adaptation. His stage version of Jack Henry Abbott's prison memoir In the Belly of the Beast was taken up last year by theaters...