Brecht Comedy Finds Men for its "Man"

June 5, 2012 - PRLog -- The play tells story of a group of soldiers whose burglary of a local pagoda goes disastrously awry, forcing them to replace one of their own men with a local dockhand.  An enterprising widow, keeper of the camp canteen, aids the soldiers in evading discovery by their merciless, bloodthirsty sergeant.

The soldiers will be played by Ian Forester, Andrew Perez, Alex Sell, and Chris Wallinger.  Terence Leclere has been cast as the mutable dockhand, Galy Gay.  Yolanda Seabourne will play beer wagon proprietress, Leucadia Begbick and Kelly Van Kirk has been cast as her sleuthing paramour, Sergeant Charles Fairchild, also known as “Bloody Five.”  The cast is rounded out by Feodor Chin, as keeper of the violated pagoda and Megan Faillace, in the role of Mrs. Galy Gay.
   
Says Utter of the casting process “We took a "keep-it-in-family" approach to casting this time out, eschewing an open call and working with actors in our own network with a clear commitment to theater.  It's worked out really well.”

In addition to directing, Utter also translated A Man’s a Man from the 1953 version of Brecht’s German text.

Of working on the new translation, Utter says “I love Brecht's sense of the absurd and the ridiculous, and while I was translating the play, I had the distinct feeling that Brecht was sitting there with me, and we would chortle together about the jokes and shenanigans of the characters.  It was a deeply satisfying experience.”

Production design will be handled by Uranium Madhouse Resident Designer, Erik Flatmo.  Composer Alex Fishkin is creating original music for the new translation.

A Man’s a Man will be the second production for the company that calls itself, “LA’s most fissionable theater cabal.”  Says Uranium Madhouse co-founder, Yolanda Seabourne, “we describe ourselves as “fissionable” because it represents potential for power and impact yet unrealized but at the brink of bursting with possibility.”

A Man’s a Man opens July 13 and will be performed Fridays and Saturdays from to August 4 at Atwater Village Theater, 3269 Casitas Ave. Los Angeles, 90039.  Tickets available at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/245480.