The New York City Premiere Production of
GEORGE KAPLAN by Frédéric Sonntag
November - December, 2022 / The New Ohio Theatre
Translated by Samuel Buggeln
Directed by Max Hunter
"Frédéric Sonntag's great, sour, vivid comedy George Kaplan is a dark hybrid of Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday and Annie Baker's The Antipodes ... much produced in the last ten years, now it's here and mean as a snake."
- Helen Shaw, THE NEW YORKER
"Director Max Hunter gleefully unlocks this French puzzle box of a play, deeply paranoid even as it mocks conspiracy, making dumbasses out of anyone seeking larger meaning. If the play is not laugh-out-loud funny, it is because it, and Hunter’s direction, trust us to hold slippery characters, ideas, and the mercurial nature of meaning all at once—but it is very funny. Beginning in someone’s basement, with grad school-types waxing metaphysical over cans of beer and ending at “deep state” levels of “power” where no amount of espionage can attain a proper answer, the higher the work goes, the dumber its inhabitants get, and the more eager they are to pass on blame. Who’s the dumbass now?" - Juan A. Ramirez, THEATRELY
“An electrifying, inquisitive explosion of anarchic comedy, conspiracy theory, and striking design that lives with you long after you leave the theater. Through razor-sharp writing, design, and direction, the play flirts relentlessly with the nature of identity, toying with Lockean memory theories of personal identity and tinkering with Nolan-ized timeline tussles in a perfect balm for anyone's itch for juicy, mysterious characters in fluctuating settings of passion and upheaval. With deceptively playful, relentless jabs at every turn led by director Max Hunter, this NYC premiere of George Kaplan is a delectably sticky, chewy SourPatch treat; First it’s sour. Then it’s sweet. Then it’s gone. Much more than a brilliant exercise in style, this strange play flawlessly maintains a ubiquitous unease of off-kilter, risky playfulness that thrives in liminal space, luxuriating in moments of mental and physical teetering on the brink of collapse. A rollercoaster thriller for the audience that is as funny as it is captivating, the English translation illuminates a wild, nonlinear world we glimpse in three distinct scenes that live inside a more abstracted, shared universe. Hunter constructs a technical, textual, and visual sandbox with auteur acumen, commanding seamless collaboration between designer and performer all around. he visuals of the play are stunning in both tableaus and the silences between, rendering the production a true edge-of-your-seat triumph in design-meets-story that makes an arresting case for the thrill of live theatre trickery. The cast’s choices are a masterclass in subtle brashness; they dance the line between fervor and curiosity with a breathless elegance, twistedly enviable in their ability to transfer innocence across timelines."
- Natalie Rine, BROADWAY DNA
Directed by Max Hunter
"Frédéric Sonntag's great, sour, vivid comedy George Kaplan is a dark hybrid of Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday and Annie Baker's The Antipodes ... much produced in the last ten years, now it's here and mean as a snake."
- Helen Shaw, THE NEW YORKER
"Director Max Hunter gleefully unlocks this French puzzle box of a play, deeply paranoid even as it mocks conspiracy, making dumbasses out of anyone seeking larger meaning. If the play is not laugh-out-loud funny, it is because it, and Hunter’s direction, trust us to hold slippery characters, ideas, and the mercurial nature of meaning all at once—but it is very funny. Beginning in someone’s basement, with grad school-types waxing metaphysical over cans of beer and ending at “deep state” levels of “power” where no amount of espionage can attain a proper answer, the higher the work goes, the dumber its inhabitants get, and the more eager they are to pass on blame. Who’s the dumbass now?" - Juan A. Ramirez, THEATRELY
“An electrifying, inquisitive explosion of anarchic comedy, conspiracy theory, and striking design that lives with you long after you leave the theater. Through razor-sharp writing, design, and direction, the play flirts relentlessly with the nature of identity, toying with Lockean memory theories of personal identity and tinkering with Nolan-ized timeline tussles in a perfect balm for anyone's itch for juicy, mysterious characters in fluctuating settings of passion and upheaval. With deceptively playful, relentless jabs at every turn led by director Max Hunter, this NYC premiere of George Kaplan is a delectably sticky, chewy SourPatch treat; First it’s sour. Then it’s sweet. Then it’s gone. Much more than a brilliant exercise in style, this strange play flawlessly maintains a ubiquitous unease of off-kilter, risky playfulness that thrives in liminal space, luxuriating in moments of mental and physical teetering on the brink of collapse. A rollercoaster thriller for the audience that is as funny as it is captivating, the English translation illuminates a wild, nonlinear world we glimpse in three distinct scenes that live inside a more abstracted, shared universe. Hunter constructs a technical, textual, and visual sandbox with auteur acumen, commanding seamless collaboration between designer and performer all around. he visuals of the play are stunning in both tableaus and the silences between, rendering the production a true edge-of-your-seat triumph in design-meets-story that makes an arresting case for the thrill of live theatre trickery. The cast’s choices are a masterclass in subtle brashness; they dance the line between fervor and curiosity with a breathless elegance, twistedly enviable in their ability to transfer innocence across timelines."
- Natalie Rine, BROADWAY DNA
First produced in the English language by the Cherry Artists' Collective, Ithaca, NY, Samuel Buggeln, Artistic Director. Production Photos by Nancy Fallon.
[title of show]
music and lyrics by Jeff Bowen / book by Hunter Bell
directed by Max Hunter
I AM YOUR MASSEUSE (five short digressions)
from Pulitzer-winner John Patrick Shanley (Doubt)
directed by Claire Edmonds
A Golden City - New Work Staged Reading
from playwright Lyle Kessler (Orphans)
New Work Development from The Assembly Theater Project
A portion of all new work proceeds will go directly towards The Actors Fund.
The Bridge Residency will partner with Broadway for Arts Education in providing
working internships to local young artists.
SEE YOU (United States Premiere)
Run concluded September 21st, 2019 / New Ohio Theatre
ZOO Venues, Edinburgh 2019, 2020 - COVID Postponement
PRAISE FOR SEE YOU:
“Sleek … You won’t want to reach for your smartphone for a few hours after seeing this one.”
- The New York Times
“If Sartre were to write a play in our age of social media, he might end up somewhere in the realm of the Bridge Production Group’s fascinating “See You.” The conceit of the play, that our online façades mask despair, insecurity, and, worse, nothingness, is clear from the start, and the play’s breathless delivery of its cynical raison d’être is as unrelenting as a Twitter feed, losing track of anything human.” - The New Yorker
“What begins as an egocentric free-for-all eventually dovetails into how a deliberate data breach among friends (with benefits) exposes secrets, truths and consequences.” - BroadwayWorld
“I was enraptured, feeling the theatrical ground beneath me shift as a result of the explosion of confusion and dissonance and crossing of paths of these five friends navigating in life and online. You must run to SEE YOU, for it already sees through us." - Onstage Blog
“Sleek … You won’t want to reach for your smartphone for a few hours after seeing this one.”
- The New York Times
“If Sartre were to write a play in our age of social media, he might end up somewhere in the realm of the Bridge Production Group’s fascinating “See You.” The conceit of the play, that our online façades mask despair, insecurity, and, worse, nothingness, is clear from the start, and the play’s breathless delivery of its cynical raison d’être is as unrelenting as a Twitter feed, losing track of anything human.” - The New Yorker
“What begins as an egocentric free-for-all eventually dovetails into how a deliberate data breach among friends (with benefits) exposes secrets, truths and consequences.” - BroadwayWorld
“I was enraptured, feeling the theatrical ground beneath me shift as a result of the explosion of confusion and dissonance and crossing of paths of these five friends navigating in life and online. You must run to SEE YOU, for it already sees through us." - Onstage Blog
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