Genesis Theatrical Productions in Chicago will be presenting a full production of Mike Czuba’s play ‘Satie et Cocteau: A Rehearsal of a Play of a Composer by a Poet’ from May 9th to June 5th 2016 at the Athenaeum theater – Studio one.
“The complexity of the script is what attracted me. Two men. Brilliant, influential artists, yet deeply flawed. The desire to recapture the past, if but for a moment, to find forgiveness, redemption, closure. The debilitating impact of addiction. The innovation of surrealism. The drive beyond the mundane. But most of all, the intensity of the relationships. It is a rich and complex story, innovatively woven.” R.Scott Purdy – Actor. (From the Chicago Tribune)
Robert Orledge, a Satie scholar and composer, who has written two books about Satie (Satie Remembered and Satie the Composer), says the play is: “..A truly excellent piece of theatre which deals convincingly and imaginatively with one of the most fraught love-hate relationships in modern French art. It has real depth and excellent dramatic pacing and is a work of art in itself”
Satie et Cocteau: A Rehearsal of a Play of a Composer by a Poet, is a play about the classical music composer Erik Satie and his complex relationship with the surrealist poet Jean Cocteau. We are watching Cocteau direct an American Actor in the role of Satie in a play that Cocteau wrote in 1939 called Soyons Vulgaires. The play takes place 15 years after the death of Satie. The action takes place during the final rehearsal where Cocteau has only called the Actor, because he feels he does not fully understand the role. Cocteau, in an opium haze, directs the Actor in a series of ‘scenes’, which run the length of Satie’s life and career. We discover that Cocteau’s intentions are for the Actor to fully embody Satie and bring him to life so he can finally exorcise him from his life.
“What you are about to see is a re-creation of a memory of a memory of actual events.” Satie et Cocteau: A Rehearsal of a Play of a Composer by a Poet is a play about the reality of memories, the possession of art, and the ‘truth’ of the theatre.
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