Wallace Shawn in Designated Mourner
(Photo by Joy Episalla)
2017 has and continues to be a year of landmark plays and players in Los Angeles. REDCAT plays host for ten performances to just such a production when it stages Wallace Shawn’s “The Designated Mourner” from May 11th to 21st as part of its Urgent Voices series. The cast is the same as the show’s 2000 run in New York, featuring playwright Shawn, Deborah Eisenberg, and Larry Pine. Director and frequent Shawn collaborator André Gregory returns as well.
First performed in 1996, this prescient piece depicts a political and aesthetic dystopia, primarily through a series of intersecting monologues. Doubtless relevant then and in its initial New York run in 2000, the existential questions asked of the play are only amplified by the Trump Presidency. And not unlike whatever series you just binge-watched on Netflix, your sympathies are bound to shift from moment to moment as the characters reveal more of the plot and vice versa.
The play opens at 8 pm on Thursday, May 11th at REDCAT in the Walt Disney Hall Compex and continues through Sunday, May 21st. Monday May 15th is dark. All performances are at 8 pm except for Sundays May 14th and 21st at 3pm. Prices vary from $25-55. For more information call 213-237-2800 or visit www.redcat.org.
