Fairfield University’s resident production company opens its 2019-20 season with five performances of Lee Blessing's critically acclaimed, offbeat comedy.
Like so many successful works that use Shakespeare’s Hamlet as a springboard, Fortinbras reimagines Hamlet in ways that will delight those who revere Shakespeare and those who couldn’t care less about the Bard.
— Mark Torres, director
Theatre Fairfield, Fairfield University’s resident production company, will open its 2019-20 season with five performances of Lee Blessing’s offbeat and sidesplitting comedy Fortinbras. The production will be staged in the Wien Experimental Theatre at the Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts at 8 p.m from Wednesday, October 23 through Friday, October 25, with a 3 p.m. matinee on Saturday, October 26, and a 2 p.m. matinee on Sunday, October 27.
Tickets are $18 general admission, $5 for all students, and $10 for senior citizens, and may be purchased in person at the Quick Center Box Office, by phone at (203)-254-4010, or online at www.quickcenter.com.
Fortinbras is a robust and ribald comedy that starts where Shakespeare’s Hamlet ends. An opportunistic, brash, and ambitious young man stumbles into the final scene of the Shakespearean classic, only to order the bodies of the royal family to be shuffled off as he devises the best possible media blitz to legitimize his ascension to the throne of Denmark. As inescapably relevant to today's political scene as the classic from which it is drawn, Fortinbras offers a comic interplay of wry literary criticism and contemporary wit that fans of television shows like VEEP or The Office will love. The humor is broad, the characters wild and unpredictable, and the situations they find themselves in are often more than not a little bawdy, violent, sexy, and slapstick. Throw in some sword fights, an accidental hanging, and some undiluted hanky-panky, and you start to scratch the surface on this imaginative, outrageous, and timely comedy on the nature of getting and keeping power.
“Like so many successful works that use Shakespeare’s Hamlet as a springboard, Fortinbras reimagines Hamlet in ways that will delight those who revere Shakespeare and those who couldn’t care less about the Bard,” said director Mark Torres, who previously directed Theatre Fairfield’s 2016 production of Pack of Lies. “This is a comedy anyone can enjoy.”
The Fortinbras cast stars Kiersten Bjork ’21, Carlin Fournier ‘22, Martha Hegley ’20, Maya Kapur ’22, Park Lytle ’21, Samantha Millette ’20, Declan Quigley ’22, Emily Ramsey ‘20, Michael Stack ’22, and Fallon Sullivan ’20. The production’s artistic team includes fight choreographer Dan Burke, scenic designer Lynne Porter, costume designer Julie Leavitt, lighting designer Lynne Chase, technical director Anne Kendall, and producer Martha LoMonaco, PhD.
