Jedidiah Thursday, September 11, 2008

Entertainment

The Prisoner’s Dilemma Opens at Burning Coal

The American professional premiere of David Edgar’s Prisoner’s Dilemma begins the 2008-2009 season at Burning Coal Theatre tonight. The play is directed by Jerome Davis, Burning Coal’s Artistic Director and concentrates on the period of time between the fall of the Berlin Wall and September 11th, 2001. How fitting that it makes its US premiere, seven years later on September 11th, 2008.

During rehearsals Wednesday night, I sat down with both Davis and Edgar, who explained the history of the play and its current incarnation which explores the “ethics of torture”. Prisoner’s Dilemma was written in the mid 90s and finished in 2000. The play was inspired by, in part, the Oslo Accords of the early 90s and is one piece of a trilogy that includes two other plays by Edgar, The Shape of the Table and Pentacost (which was performed by Burning Coal a couple of years ago). Davis hopes to fill in the remaining gap by performing The Shape of the Table in a future season. Their collaboration has spawned a “deep, rich and clear production” that should resonate with Americans in a war driven election year and 7 years of torture playing a large role in world politics.

This week also marks the seven year anniversary of the play opening at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford Upon Avon in 2001. The play was under performance when the terrorist attacks occurred in New York City and Edgar was initially nervous because of some possibly off color quotes and jokes in the play, including one about terrorism as daytime employment. Luckily, the play works as a defining voice in the transition of world politics in this time period. “Language as a political issue” is only one of many themes in the play although it occurs in a fictional country.

The production runs September 11 – 28, 2008. Check back next week for a full review of the play.

Listen to Jerome Davis and David Edgar on WUNC’s The State of Things

All performances are Thursdays through Saturdays at 7:30 pm and Sundays at 2 pm.  All tickets are $20 or $15 (students, seniors 65+ and active military personnel).  Thursday night tickets are $10 apiece, $5 student rush tickets available 5 minutes before each performance.  The first Sunday of the run, September 14th at 2 p.m. will be the ‘Pay What You Can’ performance.  The first Saturday, September 13th at 7:30 p.m. will be audio described for the visually impaired.

Tickets


Promo video -

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  • Ryan09/11 05:19 PM

    We are going to see this on Saturday.  You are coming.  I expect some follow up on all of our thoughts.  We will give you a full interview and our review over dinner at J. Betski’s. 

    Also, really looking forward to checking out the new Burning Coal facilities.

  • Ryan09/14 04:46 PM

    Alrighty, Jed…are you going to say it or am I?

  • Prancer09/17 03:57 PM

    Say what? curious to know about the show?

  • prancer09/19 01:37 PM

    planning on seeing this show this weekend. would love to hear your thoughts.

  • Jedidiah09/19 01:51 PM

    Instead of doing a full review in a new article, I’ll simply post some notes in here.

    The show is quite intense.  It was my first show at Burning Coal (and their first show in the new theatre).  Despite the fact that it was quite hot in the space and I was very hungry by intermission, the play still resonates with me.

    The play’s length caught me off guard, from beginning to end, with intermission, it is almost 3 hours.  That said, the play requires a lot of attention as it is dialogue/conversation based. The action scenes are the most dramatic and add a bit of energy to the play when it needs it (which in my opinion is often).  The countries and languages are made up, therefore wrapping your head around their names and distinguishing the two takes effort.  Be prepared. 

    The subject matter of terrorism and negotiation is very well conveyed within the scenes but some of this could be edited down to make the remaining scenes have more impact and intensity. I feel the intensity could be amped up a bit more throughout to create more tension between the characters.

    There’s a sort of lingering space towards the end of “was that the last scene” and then another scene begins. Transitions aren’t completely clear and it takes a while to get into the rhythm of the play.

    The acting varies from fantastic (a couple of the lead actors/actresses) to average. Accents fall in and out, but this is understood as everyone in the play is “acting” their accent.

    All that said, it is obviously a compelling play that creates memories that last (at least a week, it’s only been that long). I would actually like to see it again and this time eat before hand and know that the play will last as long as it does. A week later and I am glad that this was the first show I saw at Burning Coal and not some Shakespeare redux (which I think is later in the season). 

    Enjoy the show!

  • Travis09/22 05:09 PM

    one correction…this is not Burning Coal’s first show in the Murphey School. They opened the space in January of last year with an amazing production of Inherit the Wind, followed by an outstanding April production of the gospel musical Crowns. Prisoner’s Dilemma is the first show of this season…I really enjoyed it. Yes, it was heady, but liked it. I have followed Burning Coal for the last 10 seasons and am excited to see them in their new home.

    Just wanted to make sure everyone knew that the space opened in January.

  • Ryan09/23 08:25 PM

    I agree with Jedidiah’s comments, although the only thought I am left with is, “I want my three hours back”.

  • Jerry Nowell09/24 04:41 PM

    I thoroughly enjoyed the show, and feel that my 3 hours was well spent. Although I no longer work in the field, I have a Ph.D. in Political Science (my concentration in theory, with international relations and comparitive politics as subfields). I also act on occasion. I was impressed with how well Edgar captured the complexity of real life political conflict, with the characters showing almost imperceptible nuance one moment, followed by blunt outbursts of violence and bigotry the next. As an actor, I was even more impressed. I’ve been in perhaps a dozen plays over the last 25 years (as I said, acting is something I only do on rare occasion), but I’ll bet all of my lines added together are less than those spoken by the lead characters in PD. With very few exceptions, every word felt real and honest, every movement natural—a tribute to Edgar, Davis and an excellent cast. Can’t wait to see the next show.

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