Savage Rose Classical Theatre launches its first season without founder and artistic director J. Barrett Cooper at the helm with a remount of Eugene Ionesco's rollicking absurdist comedy "The Bald Soprano." The production, which features a new adapted translation by director Tad Chitwood, first played last August for a brief run. Chitwood's getting the cast back together — Brian Hinds, Sabrina Spalding, Michael Roberts, Victoria Reible, Tony Pike and Karina Strange — for another limited engagement this weekend, Friday and Saturday, at The Bard's Town (1801 Bardstown Road). The show runs for four performances nightly, beginning at 6 p.m., in the theater upstairs from the restaurant.
Savage Rose's "The Bald Soprano" is a satirical one-act that skewers middle-class manners in a non-sequitur-laden, loosely — very loosely — plotted story of two couples at a dinner party interrupted by a firecracker of a domestic worker and an oddball civil servant. It's about the breakdown of communication, the failure of language, and of course, sex. Chitwood's production features a refreshed script with new jokes for the 21st century, so you don't really have to know anything about absurdist French theatre to enjoy it — in fact, it's probably more fun if you don't. Fans of "Stella" and "Louie" will find a lot to like in this production. The next show to open in Savage Rose's season is Jean Genet's "The Maids" in the Slant Culture Theatre Festival, November 15-22, at Walden Theatre.
