Vin Knight

Ulysses

Ulysses

Gatz, the signature creation of downtown theater troupe Elevator Repair Service (ERS), included every sentence of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1924 novel The Great Gatsby, with each performance running a whopping eight hours (including intermissions and dinner break). At the Public Theater these days (16 years after Gatz premiered there), ERS is offering its take on Ulysses, the ravishingly innovative novel—serialized in 1918, published in book form in 1922—that secured James Joyce’s position as preeminent pioneer of stream-of-consciousness narrative in English. As with Gatz, the script of Ulysses consists entirely of the novelist’s original prose; this time, though, there are numerous elisions, permitting each performance to clock in at a mere two hours and 40 minutes.

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Everyone’s Fine with Virginia Woolf

Everyone’s Fine with Virginia Woolf

Elevator Repair Service (ERS), the adventurous downtown troupe known for theatrical adaptations of iconic modernist works, is parodying Edward Albee and Tennessee Williams in a new play by Kate Scelsa that has the cleverest title in town—Everyone’s Fine with Virginia Woolf. The production is directed at breakneck speed by the company’s founder, John Collins. It features visuals by Louisa Thompson (scenery), Amanda Villalobos (properties), and Kaye Voyce (costumes) that give the proceedings the kitsch-cluttered aesthetic that’s an ERS signature. 

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