A STREETCAR NAMED DURANG (IRC): 60-second review

Susan Giddings in A STYE OF THE EYE from the IRC’s A STREETCAR NAMED DURANG (Photo credit: Peggy Woolsey @ lapegphoto)
Susan Giddings in A STYE OF THE EYE from the IRC’s A STREETCAR NAMED DURANG (Photo credit: Peggy Woolsey @ lapegphoto)

High-energy hilarity fills L’Étage as the Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium remounts its 2008 Fringe Festival hit A STREETCAR NAMED DURANG, a trio of one-act parodies by playwright Christopher Durang. The audience-friendly cabaret-style show (you can order food and drinks during the performance) lovingly skewers such beloved classics of American theater as Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire and The Glass Menagerie, and Sam Shepard’s A Lie of the Mind, in three short but strapping burlesques: DESIRE, DESIRE, DESIRE; FOR WHOM THE SOUTHERN BELLE TOLLS; and A STYE OF THE EYE.

Tina Brock directs and performs with ridiculopathic favorites David Stanger, Kristen Norine, Susan Giddings, and Andrew Carroll, along with rookies Langston Darby and Kate Graham, making their impressive company debuts. All fully deliver the big laughs and expertly capture the absurdist spirit at which the IRC excels, in outrageous wigs and costumes designed by Erica Hoelscher. You’ll have a grand time watching the rollicking ensemble turn iconic dramas and tragedies into wacky comedies, and identifying the jumble of characters and quotations from other popular plays that Durang throws into his uproarious mix (including references to Willliams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Eugene O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh, Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross, and more). It’s a whole lot of laughs packed into a rapid-fire 70-minutes of ridiculously amusing entertainment, and a great start to a festive holiday season. [L’Étage, 6th & Bainbridge Sts.] November 9-28, 2014; idiopathicridiculopathyconsortium.org.

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