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| In a Dark Dark House | |
|---|---|
| Written by | Neil LaBute |
| Date premiered | May 16, 2007 |
| Place premiered | Lucille Lortel Theatre |
In a Dark Dark House is a 2007 play by Neil LaBute. The play tells a tale of sexual and emotional abuse and two brothers who attempt to overcome it.
In a Dark Dark House had its world premiere Off-Broadway at the Lucille Lortel Theatre in an MCC Theater production on May 16, 2007 and closed on July 7, 2007. Direction was by Carolyn Cantor with the cast that included Louisa Krause, Ron Livingston and Frederick Weller. [1] The run was extended by two weeks "due to popular demand". [2]
A production of the play ran at London's Almeida Theatre from November 2008 to January 2009. Director Michael Attenborough worked with LaBute to create a substantially different version of the play to the one that originally premiered in New York. [3] [4]
The revised version of the play made its West Coast premiere at The Matrix Theatre Company, Los Angeles, California, in July and August 2014. The reviewer for The Hollywood Reporter wrote: "It's among LaBute's most nakedly personal examinations of stunted males enmeshed in conflicts of intimacy, so much so that it almost self-consciously plays out as his own variation on motifs familiar from one of his most direct influences, Sam Shepard." [5] [6]
The play takes place "on the grounds of a psychiatric facility.". [7] It involves two brothers: Terry, in his late thirties and Drew, in his mid-thirties, and a girl, Jennifer, in her teens. Drew, a disbarred lawyer, is a patient at the hospital. The title is "lifted" from a section of the Ingmar Bergman film Scenes from a Marriage. [8]
Ben Brantley, in his review for The New York Times , wrote: "At its most basic, the plot of “House” becomes another LaButean exploration of how people use and betray one another. But there are subtler forces at work here, including Mr. LaBute's most sophisticated use of language thus far." [9]
Neil N. LaBute is an American playwright, film director, screenwriter, and actor. He is best-known for a play that he wrote and later adapted for film, In the Company of Men (1997), which won awards from the Sundance Film Festival, the Independent Spirit Awards, and the New York Film Critics Circle. He wrote and directed the films Your Friends & Neighbors (1998), Possession (2002), The Shape of Things (2003), The Wicker Man (2006), Some Velvet Morning (2013), and Dirty Weekend (2015). He directed the films Nurse Betty (2000), Lakeview Terrace (2008), and the American adaptation of Death at a Funeral (2010). LaBute created the TV series Billy & Billie, writing and directing all of the episodes. He is also the creator of the TV series Van Helsing. Recently, he executive produced, co-directed and co-wrote Netflix's The I-Land. He also directed several episodes for shows such as Hell on Wheels and Billions.
Donald Margulies is an American playwright and academic. In 2000, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Dinner with Friends.
Charles Louis Busch is an American actor, screenwriter, playwright and drag queen, known for his appearances on stage in his own camp style plays and in film and television. He wrote and starred in his early plays Off-off-Broadway beginning in 1978, generally in drag roles, and also acted in the works of other playwrights. He also wrote for television and began to act in films and on television in the late 1990s. His best known play is The Tale of the Allergist's Wife (2000), which was a success on Broadway.
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bash: latterday plays is a collection of three dark one-act plays written by Neil LaBute. Each play is an exploration of the complexities of evil in everyday life. Two of the works, "iphigenia in orem" and "medea redux" have direct Greek influence, specifically Iphigenia in Aulis and Medea by Euripides. In production, the three short mono-duet dramas are presented in varying orders and sometimes omitting one or two of the works. In publication, however, the plays are presented in the following order: "iphigenia in orem" followed by "a gaggle of saints" and concluding with "medea redux". The plays premiered at the Douglas Fairbanks Theater in New York City for a limited run on June 24, 1999 and featured performances by Ron Eldard, Calista Flockhart and Paul Rudd under Joe Mantello's direction. They were later shown on cable television. The director, as well as the set and sound designer of the New York production, transferred the show to London's fringe Almeida Theatre for a similarly limited run in February and March of 2000 with a new cast of Mary McCormack, Matthew Lillard, and Zeljko Ivanek. The plays had a regional US debut at TheatreZone's Actors Workshop in Boston, directed by Danielle Fauteux Jacques. They were later produced in 2003 by Pittsburgh's barebones productions, directed by Jeffrey M. Cordell.
Some Girl(s) is a play written by Neil LaBute about a man only identified as "Guy" who is about to get married. Before his wedding, he decides to visit his ex-girlfriends, all of whom he mistreated. His exes include: Sam, his former high school sweetheart; Lindsay, a college professor from Boston; Tyler, his Chicago fling; and Bobbi, a woman from Los Angeles whom he actually could have ended up with.
Wrecks is a one-man play by Neil LaBute, that was commissioned and produced by the Everyman Palace Theatre in Cork, Ireland. The play was a part of the city's Capital of Culture programme in 2005.
MCC Theater is an off-Broadway theater company located in New York City. The theater was founded in 1986 by artistic directors Robert LuPone, Bernard Telsey and William Cantler. Blake West joined the company in 2006 as executive director. MCC opened the doors to its new home in Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen neighborhood, as The Robert W. Wilson MCC Theater Space, on January 9, 2019.
The Mercy Seat is a 2002 play by Neil LaBute that was among the first major theatrical responses to the September 11, 2001 attacks. Set on September 12, it concerns Ben, a man who worked at the World Trade Center but was away from the office during the attack, with his mistress, Abby, who is also his boss. Expecting that his family believes that he was killed in the towers' collapse, Ben contemplates using the tragedy to run away and start a new life with his lover.
Christopher Shinn is an American playwright. His play Dying City (2006) was a finalist for the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and Where Do We Live (2004) won the 2005 Obie Award, Playwriting.
Mr. Peters' Connections is a play by Arthur Miller. The title character is a former Pan Am pilot who worked for the airline in its glory days. He recalls flying into a thousand sunsets and bedding eighteen Rockettes in a month, eventually marrying one of them. Now he is an aging, befuddled man lost in a world he no longer understands.
Reasons to Be Pretty is a play by Neil LaBute, his first to be staged on Broadway. The plot centers on four young working class friends and lovers who become increasingly dissatisfied with their dead-end lives and each other. Following The Shape of Things and Fat Pig, it is the final installment of a trilogy that focuses on modern-day obsession with physical appearance.
David Leveaux is a British theatre director who has been nominated for five Tony Awards as director of both plays and musicals. He directs in the UK, working at the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Almeida Theatre, and the Donmar Warehouse, on Broadway, and also in Tokyo.
Ruined (2008) is an American play by Lynn Nottage. The play premiered at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, and won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The play explores the plight of women during the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Thomas Christian Sadoski is an American stage, film, and television actor. He is best known for his roles as Don Keefer in the HBO series The Newsroom and as Matt Short in the sitcom television series Life in Pieces.
Marin Yvonne Ireland is an American actress. Known for her work in theatre and independent films, The New York Times deemed Ireland "one of the great drama queens of the New York stage". Her accolades include a Theatre World Award and nominations for an Independent Spirit Award and a Tony Award.
Juliet Rylance is an English actress and producer, known for her roles in The Knick and McMafia and Perry Mason.
Anne Kauffman is an American director known primarily for her work on new plays, mainly in the New York area. She is a founding member of the theater group the Civilians.
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