ten red hen

So we opened CLOWN BIBLE last weekend. I didn't realize how much I missed my cast until our brush-up rehearsal last night. Opening weekend was a trip--and we got great reviews:

From our review in the East Bay Express:

"hilarious, haunting, and unexpectedly challenging in the hands of Ten Red Hen. Their no-budget {The 99-cent} Miss Saigon was a hard act to follow, but CLOWN BIBLE is better. The magic of the show lies less in any great spectacle of circus arts than in the way it can turn from funny to devastating in an instant."

And from the Berkeley Daily Planet:

"The ensemble is due full, heartfelt praise, as is Ten Red Hen founder Maya Gurantz, for a truly collaborative show...contributing to the unique style and flavor of this bravura piece, a veritable tabernacle of prat-fall praise to the greater glories of the Theater of the World (amen)...CLOWN BIBLE is a theatrical event of real magnitude; the show doesn't degrade scripture, but elevates the quietly sad or manically grinning countenance of the clown, as did the medieval Miracle Plays and strangely humorous decor of cathedrals, where sacred stories seem to get sent up on sacred occasions and in sacred places."

I am sure I'll have more to say regarding the process, and what we're finding, but let this do for now:

This particular production doesn't feel "finished" in the way that other plays can. How could it? We're attempting these tricky translations, translating Bible into clown vernacular, and in the process, asking sometimes painful questions about man and faith and culture and ourselves.

It feels like the beginning of something. We need your feedback--please come and see it.