In his attempt to woo a big account, an advertiser creates mayhem in his home life in the tragicomedy "Big Night," the final production of the Yale Repertory Theatre's 35th anniversary season.
The Rep will stage the original 1928 version of the play by Dawn Powell, a prolific writer who was dubbed "lady wit." The show opens on Thursday, April 26.
"Big Night," originally titled "The Party," explores domestic strife as it casts a cool eye on the time-honored partnership between the art of advertising and the art of seduction, according to Stan Wojewodski, dean of the School of Drama and artistic director of the Yale Rep, who will direct the final production of the season.
"I am delighted to put such an incredibly strong artistic team at the service of Dawn Powell's original vision for her favorite play," Wojewodski says. "The piece, which has never been performed in this version, deserves no less. The dedication of a truly talented cast and a terrific team of designers will make it possible to get at the real muscularity of the work. 'Big Night' is funny, direct and quite sharp. It is at once human and unsentimental; it is a testament to Powell's belief that 'gaiety should be brave, it should have stout legs of truth, not a gelatin base of dreams and wishes.'"
Powell wrote more than 100 stories, 10 plays, numerous reviews and articles and 15 novels, among them "The Locusts Have No King," "A Time to be Born," "Angels on Toast" and "The Wicked Pavilion." She left her Ohio home for New York City in 1918 to become a writer, and there fell in with many of the tough-talking, hard-drinking literary icons of the Jazz Age. Among the notable individuals with whom she associated were Ernest Hemingway, E.E. Cummings, Samuel Beckett and Jean-Paul Sartre.
Despite the endorsement of famous friends, however, Powell never enjoyed financial success -- partly a result of her own choices. She once turned down an 18-week contract to write for the film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for $2,000 a week, explaining to her sister, "I think if they'd offered me 50 cents or something I could have understood; I would have snapped it up. As it was it just annoyed me to think of having to lug all that money around."
Powell was known for her sense of humor despite a troubled personal life. Her 42-year marriage to an advertising executive was rocky, and she had an autistic son. She also suffered ill health, including a tumor attached to her heart. At the time of her death in 1965, all of her books were out of print, but a burgeoning interest in her writing since the early 1990s has resulted in the reissue of Powell's novels, plays and short stories.
"Dawn Powell is one of the most eloquent proponents of the American character ever to take up a pen," says Catherine Sheehy, the Yale Rep's literary manager and resident dramaturg and an associate professor in dramaturgy at the School of Drama. "Her love of mankind is unblinking. And while she despised what she called 'dowdy optimism,' in her novels, stories and plays, she always managed to mix that perfect cocktail of cock-eyed hope and slightly bruised cynicism that is at the root of our national temperament."
Wojewodski is in his 10th season as artistic director of the Yale Repertory Theatre and dean of the School of Drama. His previous Yale Rep productions include this season's "The Way of the World," as well as "Richard III," "Hay Fever," "Pentecost," "Candida," "First Lady," "The Adventures of Amy Bock" and "Hamlet."
The cast of "Big Night" includes Matthew Mabe as Ed Bonney; Katie MacNichol as Myra Bonney; Jennifer Frankel as Vera Murphy; William Theodore Thompson II as Bob Tuttle; Graham Winton as Bill Fargo; Susan Marie Brecht as Lucille Fargo; Jay Patterson as Bert Jones; Frank Vlastnik as Chet Davies; Bess Wohl as Miss Zoom; and Anne Worden as Miss Zumph.
The design team for "Big Night" includes scenic designer Stuart Polasky; costume designer Tammy Elizabeth McBride; lighting designer Stephen Strawbridge; sound designer Mimi Epstein; dramaturgs Catherine Sheehy, Linda Bartholomai and Amy Rogoway; and stage manager Kathleen Cogbill.
"Big Night" runs through May 19 at the Yale Rep, corner of York and Chapel streets. Show times are 7 p.m. on Mondays; and 8 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, with 2 p.m. matinees on the following Saturdays: May 5, May 12, May 16 and May 19. Tickets are $20-$36, with discounted tickets available for students, senior citizens and groups. For tickets or more information, call the Yale Rep box office at (203) 432-1234; box office hours are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday. Tickets may also be purchased online at www.yalerep.org.
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