Theater: The Flea Theater / 41 White Street, New York, NY, 10013
Synopsis:
In These Seven Sicknesses, Sophocles' seven surviving plays--Oedipus, In Trachis, Philoktetes, In Colonus, Ajax, Elektra & Antigone--combine to create a stunning portrait of the human condition, where the intermingling of chance & fate yields disquieting results. A witty & relevant interpretation of the classics, These Seven Sicknesses is an epic examination of the past & a window on the present.
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February 3, 2012: Whatever the detergent bill, it’s worth it for this vibrant downtown retelling of these dark Greek legends, performed by the Flea Theater’s resident acting company, the Bats.
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January 29, 2012: Even before Oedipus asks his daughter to identify a stranger and she calls him “some jerk-off,” you know you’re in for a wink-wink take on Sophocles.
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January 31, 2012: First, disabuse yourself of a few notions. You may believe that These Seven Sicknesses—Sean Graney’s radically overhauled version of the seven extant Sophocles tragedies—lasts five hours. Sorry, masochistic marathon enthusiasts: It runs four and a half, and that’s counting massive intermissions spent chatting with the Flea’s non-Equity company, the Bats, and eating a tasty curry. It also foils expectations by excising Sophocles’ tragic bits (slapstick replaces horror), religious bits (the gods have been cut) and poetic bits (the chorus now croons close-harmony songs and cracks wise). So what is left? In Ed Sylvanus Iskandar’s sloppy, inventive, careering production, we’re left with just an impression of chaos and movement and bad Bronze Age decision-making. More than 30 Bats swoop and flutter about, trying to balance between off-the-cuff casualness and the occasional epic breakdown, while simultaneously serving as our waiters and asking—eagerly! constantly!—about our level of enjoyment.
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January 28, 2012: There’s a lot of talk in the theater community about the supposedly growing short attention span of American audiences: “Do we cater to it or do we ignore it?” Bizarrely (and happily), the Flea seems to have found a way to do both with their production of Sean Graney’s These Seven Sicknesses. At 4 ½ hours, this adaptation of all seven surviving plays of Sophocles is theater at its best—ambitious, epic, fun, engaging, beautiful, and executed with skillful precision. It is an Event, and that capital “E” isn’t a typo.
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January 29, 2012: Greek tragedies' favorite themes—pestilence, passion, revenge, incest, murder, war—are brought to pulsating life in "These Seven Sicknesses," Sean Graney's adaptation of Sophocles' seven surviving plays. By the end of the four-and-a half-hour evening (with breaks for dinner and dessert), we get to know recurring characters such as Oedipus, Philoktetes, Antigone, Ajax, and Creon and their ambitions, schemes, impulses, and sexual desires.
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February 1, 2012: An admirably tackled production of epic proportions, where literary shortcomings can be largely overlooked thanks to heavy doses of charm and grit.
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