rep theatre: A RETURN TO JOY
"I have witnessed a lot of theater in my lifetime and this production gave me the strongest feeling I’ve ever had of the joy of pure theater. It was magic. Partly because everything was pared down to its purest elements and it was made completely from scratch. It made me see all the bones of theater and reminded me of how deeply humans fundamentally benefit from the theatrical experience. I was so impressed that performances had none of the pandering or mugging that sometimes is found in small "community" productions, just pure skill and nuance. I was surprisingly more impressed by the performances in this play than when I saw John Malkovich and Gary Sinise at the Cherry Lane Theater in True West because although both productions were pared down productions, Three Plays for Time didn't rely solely on individual virtuoso performances. In Three Plays for Time the actors were all fantastic and worked as a team to make something really great, which is harder and that energy is beautiful to behold.
The audience was very diverse and was thoroughly engaged throughout the show. There were 4 teenage girls sitting on one side of me, an older couple on the other and they were all rapt. At the end of the show a young man came up to the actors and said it was his first time he had ever seen a play. He was blown away by the experience and wanted autographs of the players.
It was a night where everyone was either reminded, or found out for the first time, what a masterful theater production can do for the soul."
~ Joe D'Augustine
REP THEATRE’S FIRST SHOW: three plays for time
Max Shippee & Marco Antonio Garcia recently founded Rep Theater, an endeavor born of their mutual love for writing & drama—& lifting weights. A return to the black box, RT recently put up its first show, Three Plays for Time, a series of one acts, in the gym space of 1440 Athletics & Fitness in Lomita, CA. In it’s theatrical incarnation, the space welcomed a sold-out audience of 100 people. Garcia directed Alexis Maron, Dash Porter, Derek Rubiano, Marc Ryan, & Max Shippee in “Sure Thing” by David Ives, “Waiting” by Ethan Coen, & in an original piece by Garcia, “Destiny Turns on the Radio.”
The small space was an intimate experience that transported the audience to the 1940’s and the subtly connected stories through acting that was humorous, nuanced, and intelligently paced.
Congratulations to Rep Theater for its first of hopefully many more shows!
