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In honor of playwright Christopher Durang, who passed on April 2, the next in Melbourne Civic Theatre's series of new play readings will be his 2005 comedy, MISS WITHERSPOON. As Linda Winer of Newsday put it, “This is Durang at the top of his metaphysical, apocalyptic, high-and-pop cultural game…thoroughly lovable. And funny.” It is a comedy, but a thoughtful one. The reading will be on Saturday, June 1st at 2 p.m. at MCT in downtown Melbourne. Bringing this fall-down funny comedy to life are a cast of terrific comic actors: Victoria Smith, Zamira Marquez, Julia Jordan, Holly McFarland Karnes and Aaron McFarland Karnes.
THE STORY: The play tells the story of Veronica, a woman who has “had enough” and has killed herself. She hoped there would be no after life, but if there was, she was expecting Saint Peter at the gates. To her surprise she in the “the Bardo,” where a sweet but firm Indian woman named Maryamma keeps trying to FORCE her to reincarnate, which she refuses to do. Maryamma rechristens her Miss Witherspoon because her sardonic negativism is reminiscent of an Agatha Christie–style 'bothersome Englishwoman.'
So far she’s thwarted these return visits to earth with a sort of “spiritual otherworldly emergency brake system” she seems to have. Maryamma tries to convince her that the world is in such a mess that souls “must move through their spiritual evolution faster than they’ve been doing…they cannot go live through eighty and ninety years and only learn tiny, tiny lessons. We need things to move faster!”
MISS WITHERSPOON was a hit in 2005 in its joint premiere at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton and Playwrights Horizons in New York.
The play was named one of the Ten Best Plays of 2005 by Time Magazine and Newsday, and was a finalist for the Pulitizer Prize.
Here's what the critics had to say about the play:
“The author of many zippy sitcoms about domestic and social outrages now turns his thoughts to the afterlife, in an endearingly meditative farce about Veronica, a depressive woman who commits suicide in the year 2000 ('At least I got to miss 9/11') and lands in a sort of limbo, where she is reincarnated as, among other things, an abused child and a dog…It’s a pleasure to note that [Durang] hasn’t lost his screwball. At the beginning of the new play an unseen voice warns the audience that there are five obscenities in the play. 'All the other words are nice.' They are, and pertinent and funny too.”
—Time Magazine.
“With MISS WITHERSPOON, Christopher Durang recovers the wonderfully irreverent humor that has made him famous… Veronica is forced into successive rebirths. A furious baby, her puzzled parents range from solid burghers to drug-addicted hippies. She is happiest when briefly reincarnated as a blissfully ball-fetching dog…this is easily New York’s funniest show.” —Bloomberg News.
“Chris Durang’s slyly bittersweet new entertainment.” —Village Voice.
“A delightful eighty-minute crazy-quilt fantasy.” —Associated Press.
Tickets for the reading are $15, and will go on sale on Tuesday, May 21st at mymct.org.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
817 E Strawbridge Ave, Melbourne, FL, United States, Florida 32901
Tickets
