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BETHESDA, Md. – Quotidian Theatre Company regulars, Jane Squier Bruns (Lettice Douffet) and Leah Mazade (Lotte Schoen), will delight audiences in Peter Shaffer’s comedy about the most eccentric tour guide ever to lead lackadaisical visitors through one of England’s dullest stately homes.
Like most outrageous comedies, it has a simple premise – colliding personalities. The tourists seem bored, so Lettice’s imagination takes flight and her inventiveness goes so far that she gets fired by Schoen, a fastidious bureaucrat.
Audiences who know the author, Peter Shaffer, will recognize the excitement he generates by opposites colliding. His masterwork, Amadeus, is based on the irreconcilable differences between Mozart and Salieri. The relationships in Shaffer’s other great plays are similar –in Equus the psychiatrist and the boy he’s treating who blinds horses; in The Royal Hunt of the Sun, the conquistador Pizarro ends up killing the Inca God-king Atahualpa.
In Lettice and Lovage, the conflict is all for laughs, though, and Bruns and Mazade are joined by QTC veteran John Decker as Mr. Bardolf and newcomer Elizabeth Darby as Miss Framer, with Ruthie Rado and David Johnson rounding out the hilarious cast.
Director Lou Pangaro notes, “What’s unique about Lettice and Lovage is that here we have two amazing parts for strong women, and this one’s a comedy. There’s a bit of blood spilled, but it turns out that polar opposites can be friends.”
Lettice and Lovage opens April 17 at the Writers’ Center in Bethesda, MD, and runs weekends through May 17, with Friday and Saturday evening performances at 8:00 p.m., and Sunday matinees at 2 p.m. Tickets are available at Brown Paper Tickets (http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/1351426) or by calling the Quotidian Theatre Company box office at 301-816-1023.
Audience members may also join director Lou Pangaro and his talented cast directly following the 2 p.m. matinee on 26 April for an after-show discussion moderated by QTC board member, actress, and Folger Theatre dramaturg Michele Osherow. |
