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American Players Theatre
5950 Golf Course Road
P.O. Box 819
Spring Green, WI 53588
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Box Office: 608-588-2361
Administration: 608-588-7401
Fax: 608-588-7085
June 12 - September 27
A Comedy About the End of It All
The seas are stormy, the house is crumbling and the guests are about to arrive. It’s the event of a lifetime, as a couple at the edge of the world invites their illustrious guests into their home and their memories. Each conversation opening new portals to the soul of this weird and wonderful pair, and the reality they exist within. An absurdist tragicomedy that manifests as vaudevillian slapstick – paradoxical, clownish and delightfully strange. Featuring the prime pairing of Colleen Madden and James Ridge – artists with the skill to flow through each nuance, from poetry to pratfall.
Synopsis
It’s been a few years since APT has had an absurdist on stage (Exit the King, 2018), and Ionesco is among the best of the genre. An elderly couple waits in a remote house for an Orator to lead a grand, scientific lecture. As the guests begin to “arrive,” the couple scrambles to seat all their guests, while holding increasingly surreal conversations. A “tragic farce” - clownish, quirky and existential – just the way we like our theatre of the absurd. Featuring Colleen Madden and James Ridge, and directed by Vanessa Stalling (Constellations, 2024).
Contains adult themes and language. Contact the Box Office at 608-588-2361 for specific content information.
This translation of THE CHAIRS was first produced by Theatre de Complicitie and the English Stage Company at the Theatre Royal Bath on 22 October 1997.
First performance at the Royal Court Theatre on 19 November 1997.
Originally produced on Broadway in New York City by Bill Kenwright, Carole Shorenstein Hays, Scott Rudin and Stuart Thompson.
Staff
Director
Voice & Text Coach
Costume Design
Scenic Design
Lighting Design
Music Composition & Sound Design
Movement Specialist
Stage Management Assistant
Stage Manager
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Member of Actors' Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers
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Member of Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, an Independent Labor Union
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Member of United Scenic Artists
Director's Note
The Chairs feels, to me, like both a love letter to theatre and a challenge to it. The play insists on the failure of language, the instability of meaning and the limits of art. Yet, in doing so, it creates meaning. While negating itself, it affirms itself.
At its heart is an act of resistance. The Old Man and Old Woman, at the end of their lives, create purpose together in the face of despair. Through love, companionship and invention, they give each other a reason to continue. That fight culminates in one final attempt to leave something behind: a message.
Eugène Ionesco said The Chairs was not a play, but a testament. He described the work as an encounter with the ontological void. Sprung from the image of an empty chair, the play grapples with both the absence that image evokes and the overwhelming anxiety of its proliferation that follows. Rather than moving toward resolution, the play intensifies. It builds, accumulates and overwhelms until it reaches not a resolution, but a confrontation. In that confrontation, there is a kind of release.
Our work has been to embrace these extremes: the excess, the rhythm, the strange theatricality Ionesco calls for. Influenced by the circus, cabaret and silent film, this world is exaggerated, physical and deeply human.
Although we are left with absence, here we are sitting and experiencing together. Thank you for being here.
- Vanessa Stalling, Director of The Chairs