| For its latest production, the Renegade Theatre Experiment
is leaving it all up to chance-at least that's how one
of the characters in The Dice House would have
it. The theater company is staging this wild satire by
Paul Lucas, which humorously dissects the psychiatric
profession but at the same time explores the role chance
may play in our lives.
The Dice House runs June 6-21, with
previews June 4-5, at the Benson Theatre on the
Bellarmine campus.
Based on Luke Rhinehart's book The Dice Man,
which gained something of a cult following, The Dice
House is a darkly comic farce about the rivalry
between two psychiatrists.
One therapist favors traditional psychiatric methods
and the other subscribes to the revolutionary Dice
Theory, in which a roll of the dice is relied upon for
making life decisions. The feud goes from professional
to personal when the traditionalist's wife is won over
to the dice-roller's philosophy, and then things start
to get ugly indeed. The play premiered at the edgy
Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland last summer.
RTE was started about two years ago by a group of
Santa Clara University alumni who were looking to hone
their craft as actors. After a few months of focusing on
sharpening their skills in workshops, the group realized
that they had the makings of their own company. RTE had
its first production, a collection of short plays by
David Ives, in August 2001.
The company launched its first season last summer
with two productions: Sin, by Wendy MacLeod, a
full-length play about a woman who reexamines her life
after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, and Hear Me
Roar!, a collection of one-act plays that explored
issues of women's self-images.
It's already obvious from its résumé that Renegade Theatre Experiment is living up to its name, and to its
mission of presenting unique works away from the
mainstream. Another perfect example of that mission in
action is the company's next play, Eat the Runt
by Avery Crozier. The play, the premise of which is a
seemingly simply job interview at an art gallery, has a
unique twist in that at each performance, the audience
gets to decide who in the eight-member cast will play
each role. The play offers an astonishing 40,320
possible different casting combinations, so it really is
a completely different show every night. Eat the
Runt, which will conclude RTE's second season, opens
in late July.
"The Dice House" plays June 6-21 at the Benson Theatre,
850 Elm St., San Jose. Tickets are $12-18.
For more information, call 408.351.4440
or visit http://www.renegadetheatre.com/.
|
Photograph by Scott McClelland