Death and the Maiden

Written By Ariel Dorfman
Directed By Billy Ray Brewton

October 20-November 5, 2011
Thursday-Saturday Nights at 8pm

Performed at 5th Avenue Antiques

Set in an unnamed country that is, like the author's native Chile, emerging from a totalitarian dictatorship, the play explores the after effects of repression on hearts and souls. Paulina Escobar's husband Gerardo is to head an investigation into past human rights abuses. A Dr. Miranda stops at Escobars' to congratulate Gerardo. Paulina overhears them speaking and is convinced that Miranda supervised her prison torture sessions. She ties him to a chair and conducts her own interrogation, gun in hand. Escobar doesn't know whether to believe his distraught wife or his persuasive new friend. This white knuckle thriller is a rivetting intellectual and emotional tug of war.

Featuring: Beth Kitchin, J.J. Marrs, and Ron Dauphinee

AL.COM REVIEW
“Three of Birmingham’s best actors at work. That’s worth the price of admission.”
— Alec Harvey

Ariel Dorfman, the Chilean-American author of numerous works of fiction, plays, poems, screenplays and essays in both Spanish and English, holds the Walter Hines Page chair at Duke University. His books have been translated into over forty languages and his plays staged in more than one hundred countries. His play DEATH AND THE MAIDEN won England’s Olivier Award for Best Play 1991 and was produced on Broadway, made into a feature film by Roman Polanski and was revived in London’s West End starring Thandie Newton in late 2011; it continues to be produced all over the world. WIDOWS and READER have won awards from the Kennedy Center and also been staged worldwide. Other plays include PURGATORIO – which ran in Madrid in 2011 starring Viggo Mortensen, THE OTHER SIDE/DELIRIUM, (Market Theatre, Johannesburg, 2012) PICASSO’S CLOSET and SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER. In 1995, his film PRISONERS IN TIME, a BBC Teleplay co-written with Rodrigo Dorfman, won Best Feature Film screenplay WGGB Awards. Other original screenplays include SHAHEED, BURNING CITY and an adaptation of his novel BLAKE’S THERAPY. In 2011 FEEDING ON DREAMS was published, a sequel to his memoir HEADING SOUTH, LOOKING NORTH (pub. 1999), from which the Oscar short-listed documentary, A PROMISE TO THE DEAD is based. He is active in the defense of human rights and his articles are published in the most important broadsheets worldwide. In 2010 he delivered the Mandela Lecture in South Africa. New plays include ALLEGRO! and ADIOS, CERVANTES written in 2016 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Cervantes’ death. He is currently working on a new opera, NACIKETA for Opera Circus with composer Nigel Osborne.