NEWFEST 2008

THE RUBIK'S CUBE

By Kimberly Barrante, winner of the 2008 Rod Parker Playwrighting Award prize
Directed by Joe Antoun
Semel Theater

• Thursday, April 3 8pm
• Friday, April 4 8pm
• Saturday, April 5 2pm ***Talkback after the performance***
• Saturday, April 5 8pm

The Rod Parker Playwrighting award is a wonderful opportunity for new playwrights in the Emerson student community. First place winners receive a cash award in addition to the production of their play. There will be readings of some of the other plays submitted. NewFest is funded by the generous support of Rod Parker, Emerson College '51.

READINGS

New work will also be celebrated with the readings of three new plays by Emerson students, performed by Emerson students. The schedule is:

• Monday, April 7, Lindsay Soson's WONDER
• Tuesday, April 8, George Watsky's HAROLD’S FALL
• Wednesday, April 9, Adam Patterson's BETTER HOME AWAITING

These readings will all take place in the Greene Theater.

Dramaturgical Information

Sol Yoae Jun, the student Dramaturg for THE RUBIK'S CUBE, wrote a Study Guide and a document defining some of the terminology and references in the show.

The Idea behind Rubik's Cube

In January, Emerson Stage announced the 2008 winner of the Rod Parker Playwrighting Award: Kimberly Barrante's Rubik's Cube.

This absurdist comedy is the story of Dennis, a linguist, and Clarence, his not-so-clever assistant, who are diagnosed with a terminal illness called "the acronym". Dennis has a theory that their lives might be prolonged if they could go somewhere very cold "as chickens in the freezer last long enough to be leftovers" so the two move to the Antarctic before mortality catches up with them.

With this stolen time, Dennis plans to finish the world's greatest novel, but can never get past the first sentence. Clarence, on the other hand, is determined to solve a Rubik's Cube. They are interrupted when a lost scientist stumbles into their camp with a frozen caveman in tow. Paranoid that the two Englishmen will steal his Nobel Prize-winning popsicle, he holds the two friends at "flare-point" and makes off with their supplies. Leaving the thawing caveman as his only ransom, Dennis, Clarence, and their Paleolithic partner are left to make the most of their fleeting time. As the synopsis suggests, Barrante was inspired by the work of Samuel Beckett and Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. "I have always been captivated by stories of friendship," Barrante says. "I wanted to write a play that captured that sort of dynamic: Laurel and Hardy comedy combined with the camaraderie of Sancho and Don Quixote.”

Barrante, a senior Writing Literature and Publishing major, wrote the play in Andrew Clarke's Playwrighting class her sophomore year at Emerson under the working title, The Caveman Cometh. Prior to that, she had written some adaptations of books and short stories for the stage, but Rubik's Cube is her first completely original work. The play was selected for a staged reading in last year's NewFest. Barrante says, "Hearing my play read by two talented actors and getting feedback helped me greatly in the revision process."

Although the play utilizes an absurdist approach in style and situation, Barrante hopes the work touches the humanist aspect of the characters as much as the funny bones of the audience. "What is killing Dennis and Clarence is not important, only they are important. They are not defined by their illness, nor are they defined by their accomplishments, as Dennis seems to believe. In the end, they are two individuals who find themselves in each other."

Article by Christopher McCoy