Blue/Orange, British playwright Joe Penhall’s award-winning examination of race and medical bureaucracy, makes its Berkshires premier this summer at Shakespeare & Company. Directed by Timothy Douglas, this incendiary and provocative three-man play features critically-acclaimed actors Jason Asprey, Malcolm Ingram and newcomer LeRoy McLain. Performances run in Founders’ Theatre July 5 through September 2. Press opening is July 14.
Founders’ is air-conditioned and wheelchair accessible. Performances in the evenings run at 8:00 p.m. and in the afternoons at 3:00 p.m. Tickets range from $10 to $57. For a complete listing of productions and schedules or to inquire about student, senior, group and Rush Tix or to receive a brochure, please visit the Web site at www.shakespeare.org Box office phone number is (413) 637-3353.
Blue/Orange swept the most prestigious UK theatre awards after its debut at the National Theatre in London in 2000, netting the Olivier Award, the Evening Standard and the Critic’s Circle awards both for Best New Play. Most recently, Penhall was co-screenwriter for this year’s Oscar-winning film The Last King of Scotland.
Timothy Douglas, a former teacher-in-residence at Shakespeare & Company, returns to direct. Douglas’s first acting job after completing Yale’s MFA program was in Antony and Cleopatra at S&Co in 1986. Since then his credits as an actor and director have ranged far and wide, including directing duties for the world premier of Radio Golf, the final play in August Wilson’s ten part opus about African-American life in the 20th century.
Douglas says the play stabs at the heart of two issues whose importance in American culture may only be surpassed by the degree to which they remain unresolved: race relations and the faltering health care system. Written by a British playwright and taking place in England, the allegory inherent in the play doesn’t exactly align with the situation in the United States. However, Douglas says, this may provide just enough distance for the audience to confront the issues more vigorously.
“What’s interesting is the way race relations are being played out in England versus America – it’s markedly different,†Douglas says. “So on the one hand it’s a way of really looking at it in a way that America doesn’t want to look at its race issues. On the other hand it’s different enough that it does seem like ‘the other.’â€
Douglas says he’s pleased to be able to direct the play at S&Co, where the Company’s deep pool of acting talent gave him the opportunity to cast three British nationals in the play. “That authenticity is really going to reveal the theatricality and the wonderful writing on its own and that will be the most integral part of the production,†Douglas adds.
Jason Asprey plays Robert, a young doctor who wants to diagnose his enigmatic patient, LeRoy McClain’s Christopher, as schizophrenic the day before Christopher is due to be discharged from the hospital. Malcolm Ingram plays Bruce, Robert’s mentor and bureaucratic superior, who is eager to let Christopher go and free up another bed for more ostensibly deserving patients. Christopher presents a challenge to the doctors, as he appears in many ways to be ready for discharge but refuses to withdraw his claim that he is the son of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, or that oranges are blue beneath their skin. The three actors also take markedly different turns in Rough Crossing, the hilarious Tom Stoppard farce playing in repertory along with Blue/Orange all summer.
The play, billed as a biting comedy, shows how career motives, institutional procedures, and the ever-present filter of race combine to muddy the ostensibly objective practice of diagnosing a patient in need. Given that studies reveal blacks in America are much more likely to be diagnosed as schizophrenic than whites, Blue/Orange gives urgent voice to a challenging argument that falls squarely within Shakespeare & Company’s mandate to present important new plays by emerging artists that confront socially significant issues.
“I don’t know yet if Christopher is truly moving in and out of consciousness or if he truly does recognize what’s happening. I don’t know yet and that’s what I’m most interested in finding out,†Douglas says.
The issues confronted in Blue/Orange will also be explored as part of the free Bankside Humanities Series at the tented Rose Footprint Theatre. Yale University drama professor and theatre historian David Krasner will address “Blue/Orange: Racial Madness†on August 16 at 5:45 p.m.
This is Timothy Douglas’s seventh season at S&Co. His acting credits at the Company include As You Like It (LeBeau, Amiens, Hymen), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Starveling), Antony & Cleopatra (Soothsayer), Shakesquad & Clown Company (Sandefur Yellow). His director credits include Yale Rep’s world premier of August Wilson’s Radio Golf, Ibsen’s Rosmersholm at the National Theatre of Oslo and Off-Broadway. He was Associate Artistic Director of Actors Theatre of Louisville (2001 – 2004) where he directed a.m. Sunday, All My Sons, Art, Blues for an Alabama Sky, Crimes of the Heart, Fences, Jitney, The Lively Lad, and The Piano Lesson. He also directed In the Blood at the Guthrie Theater; Assassins, Blues for an Alabama Sky, and Insurrection at Berkshire Theatre Festival; Holding History at the Mark Taper Forum, where he was Director-in-Residence (1995- 997). His other credits include productions at Berkeley Rep, Indiana Rep, Portland Center Stage, San Jose Rep, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Downstage (New Zealand), Syracuse Stage, Utah Shakespearean Festival, and Toi Whakaari (New Zealand). He is a Linklater-designated voice instructor. He earned his MFA at Yale School of Drama.
At a Glance
Production: Blue/Orange
Theatre: Founders’ Theatre
Director: Timothy Douglas
Cast: Jason Asprey, Malcolm Ingram, LeRoy McClain
Set Designer: Tony Cisek
Lighting Designer: Les Dickert
Costume Designer: Govane Lohbauer
Performing: Previews July 5—July 12
Opens: July 14
Closes: September 2
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