![]() He is an aging academic trapped by his own reductionist philosophies and unable to cope with dissent, logical or otherwise he is an absurdist’s Prospero, beguiled and undone by his own magical incantations.Īs the play opens, the Maid, who is clearly disenchanted with her work, scrubs away at an ornate chair and the floor around it. There are only three characters: The Maid, played with brusque efficiency by Margaret Gilkes the eager and confident Pupil, performed with comedic flair by Fran Potasnik and the intense Professor, brilliantly captured by Adrian Diffey. As with any irrational dream, this play invites post-curtain discussion and scrutiny, but there are no prerequisites for enjoying it at face value. The Lesson, a one-act dark comedy running a tight 70 minutes, is at times silly, disorienting, confusing and terrifying. Although Ionesco was dramatizing a post-WWII sense of futility, rejecting the societal conventions of theatre, art and communication itself, his surrealist sensibilities remain archly relevant today.Īudiences unfamiliar with absurdist drama may not know what to expect at Waterford’s Monster Box Theatre, but that is no reason to shy away from this precisely and beautifully crafted production. To be sure, generations of Parisians have embraced the lessons in this play, which has run for 60 years – without interruption and to full houses – at the Théâtre de la Huchette. Monster Box Theatre and Mind the Gap Productions are to be commended for realizing, somewhat ironically, that context for understanding the present state of affairs in the USA (and beyond) lies in the Theatre of the Absurd canon and Eugene Ionesco’s The Lesson. – In what feels to many like the winter of our discontent, small rays of sunshine are evident throughout the theater community via productions that lend perspective, optimistic or otherwise, on the current human condition. ![]()
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