STUPID CHEAP THEATRE TICKETS!!!

Opening November 17...

In 1993, IBP presented Jason Nodler's In the Under Thunderloo, an epic anti-play full of big ideas, rock-and-roll songs and sly pop-cultural commentary that revolutionized underground theater in Houston. In '94, IBP took aim at Bertolt Brecht's In the Jungle of Cities, a notorious, beautiful puzzle of a play, which examined capitalism in a harsh, yet wickedly funny, light. Over a decade later, IBP has discovered a unique playwright who manages to combine elements of both those early IBP successes, inspiring IBP to revisit, in a sense, those seminal years. True to its generation, IBP kicks off the new season with a burlesque meditation on the Cold War, Epic Theater, utopia and the rock band Journey.

The Village Voice called playwright Charles Mee “fearlessly unoriginal … a Napster of contemporary theater.” Both compliments, actually, according to Mee. He himself has said, “There’s no such thing as an original play,” and Full Circle is a perfect example. Set in East Germany in 1989, Full Circle is a political farce inspired by Brecht's Caucasian Chalk Circle (and the Chinese opera that inspired Brecht's version).The brutally funny comedy pillages theater history and popular culture, depicting real-life personalities in desperate, twisted situations. Mee fully embraces postmodernism as an endless, overflowing fountain of material--primordial liquors for an intense, intoxicating theatrical cocktail. (Now, that’s a philosophy IBP can get behind!)

During a bizarre performance by the Berliner Ensemble, American socialite Pamela Dalrymple finds herself at ground zero for the collapse of European communism. Having "inherited" the baby of East German leader Erich Honecker during a riot, she and revolutionary Dulle Griet embark on a journey across capitalism-drunk East Germany, hotly pursued by the authorities, who will stop at nothing to obtain Honecker's child. Throughout, Mee injects the espionage-laced story with wickedly funny sideplots involving the caustic Berliner Ensemble director Heiner Muller and a Coke-swilling American capitalist based on Warren Buffett. And of course, what would a meditation on the end of the Cold War be without a Journey song? course, what would a meditation on the end of the Cold War be without a Journey song? Ultimately, Mee's tale arrives back at Brecht's famous "circle" for the final showdown, though the lines between winners and losers may seem as smeared as chalk on asphalt. In fact, Mee has accomplished something rarely seen in the adaptation game: A seemingly familiar story reaches its dramatic destination in a foreign country whose poetic language is wholly untranslatable. With his brilliant and hilarious sense of theatricality, Mee's ideas are viscerally decoded and communicated fluently and beautifully.
IBP artistic director Anthony Barilla will give Houston its long-overdue introduction to Mee’s work with Full Circle, which opens Thursday, November 17 and runs Fridays and Saturdays, 8pm, through December 17 at the Axiom, 2524 McKinney. Preview party Wednesday, November 16 ($35 admission includes beer, wine and food), party starts at 6:30pm; performance at 8pm.

For reservations, call 713-522-8443.

ABOUT CHARLES MEE
Chuck Mee has written bobrauschenbergamerica, Wintertime, Belle Epoque, Vienna: Lusthaus, Snow in June, A Perfect Wedding, Limonade tous les Jours, and a number of other plays in addition to his work inspired by Greek plays: Big Love (Obie winner, Best Play 2001), True Love, Orestes 2.0, Trojan Women A Love Story and others. His plays have been performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, American Repertory Theatre, New York Theatre Workshop, the Public Theatre, Lincoln Center, the Humana Festival, Steppenwolf, and other places in the United States as well as in Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, Vienna, Istanbul and elsewhere.
His complete works are available on the internet at www.charlesmee.org.

His work is made possible by the support of Jeanne Donovan Fisher and Richard B. Fisher.