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Ulysses in Traction
Author(s):
Albert Innaurato
The place is the rehearsal hall in the theatre complex of a large midwestern university. The time is 1970, and as those assembled in the hall proceed with rehearsal of a student play, a violent race riot is taking place outside the locked doors. Those besieged include the graduate student author of the play; the head of the department and the acid-tongued actress with whom he is having an affair; the alcoholic director of the play; a campy homosexual faculty member; an over-intense young student actor; and a frustrated female playwright turned stage manager. The work being rehearsed is a ridiculously sentimental parody of a Vietnam War play, and as the problems of interpreting it effectively increase, the students and faculty members break off to scuffle, fight, reminisce and to air the grievances, desires and disappointments which beset them all. What results is very funny, but it also reveals, beneath the humor, the unhappiness and sense of failure which these people feel--the knowledge of their mediocrity in retreating to the safe sterility of university theatre without ever having braved the demands and dangers of the real world--and the real theatre--beyond.
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Genre(s): | Comedy
| Time Period(s): | Not Available | Play Type: | Play | Runtime: | Not Available | Acts: | Not Available | Set Complexity: | Not Available | Set Information: | Not Available | Year First Published: | Not Available | Total Characters: | 8 | Male Characters: | 5 | Female Characters: | 3 | Androgynous Characters: | Not Available | Minimum Cast: | Not Available | Maximum Cast: | Not Available | Cost: | FEE: $50 per performance Royalty/cost information prone to change. Please check with the publisher for the most accurate information. | Publisher: | Dramatists Play Service Click on the publisher's name above for additional information, including updated prices. | ISBN: | Not Available |
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