The
1993 award-winning play, Six Degrees of
Separation, will be performed by Theater Union through Saturday, May 22 at 8 p.m.; and Sunday, May 23, at 2 p.m.
The
play, directed by Prof. Joanne Yarrow, is based on a true-life incident. It reveals
in alternately comic and dramatic portrayals, the delicate “threads of chance”
that mysteriously wend through our lives.
The
plot centers on an urbane conman's sophisticated incursion into the lives of Manhattan's Upper Eastside gentry. Arriving bloodied and battered
on a couple's doorstep after being “mugged,” he reveals that he is Sidney
Poitier's son and their son's college chum. Intelligent, articulate, and witty,
the young man soon inveigles his way into their lives. The dénouement comes
when his ruse unravels and the couple learns that others in their social set
have been similarly scammed. Yet, their lives have been touched by their shared
experience.
“[The
play] presents us with a myriad of social issues and questions,” Yarrow explains.
“John Guare, the playwright, brings to the stage the subjects of homosexuality,
racism, classism and the indirect relationship we have to all other human
beings on this planet. The play is an act of self-reflection through
storytelling and the sharing of an experience. It questions our morals, our
values, our depth, our reality, our humanity and above all our imagination. It
is a play that lets you laugh, cry and think. The play is about the imagination
and, as one of the characters states: 'The imagination is not our escape – it is
the place we are all trying to get to.'”
Theater
Union's production is different, Yarrow says,
in that “We are setting it in the present time, in a cocktail bar with the
audience sitting on three sides of the theatre.”
The
play won an Oliver Award and the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award.
For
tickets and information, call the Yulman Theater box office at ext. 6545.