BY DAVID HIRSON
A NOTE FROM THE SCHOOL OF THEATRE DIRECTOR
Welcome to our Season!
The School of Theatre at Boston University is delighted and honored for you to join us as we present our work to the world–all of the rehearsal hours, production meetings, technical rehearsals culminate in an experience that is not complete without you, our audience. The theatre is one of the only spaces in our lives where we gather in witness together, be it in joy, grief, curiosity, or even anger. In this, the theatre is a special space, a sacred space, and we invite your imagination to take flight with us during these performances, and hope you will return again (and again) to witness all of what makes us human as it is expressed on our stages.
With warmth and gratitude,
Kirsten Greenidge Director, BU College of Fine Arts School of Theatre
LaBête
Written by
DAVID HIRSON
DECEMBER 8-10, 2024
STUDIO ONE
CFA 104
Boston University College of Fine Arts
855 Commonwealth Ave. Boston, MA
Runtime
2 hours with a 10-minute intermission
CAST
ELOMIRE
CATHERINE DE BRIE
MARQUISE-THERESE DU PARC
PRINCE CONTI
BEJART
RENE DU PARC
DE BRIE
DORINE
MADELEINE BEJART
VALERE
Aaron Lamm
Chloe McFarlane
Ava Laroche
Shai Vaknine
Owen Sloane
Zack Mallgrave
Billy McColl
Taline Banks
Lana Breheney
Ted Doyle
DESIGN & PRODUCTION TEAM
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR
STAGE MANAGER
SCENE DESIGNER
LIGHTING DESIGNER
ASSISTANT LIGHTING DESIGNER
PRODUCTION ELECTRICIAN
Liv King
LEAD USHER
Noah Wrafter
Grant Powicki
Alisa Saisakorn
LIGHTING
PRODUCTION ASSISTANTS
Gabrielle Cadden
Cameron Carcasson
This production features a performance
of
In Paris You Will Find Many Baguettes but Only One True Love
by
Michael Law
DIRECTOR
LIGHTING DESIGNER
LINDY
Liv King
Davin Martin
Christian Donnerson
Gabrielle Cadden
Zack Mallgrave
DIRECTOR & PLAYWRIGHT
Clay Hopper (DIRECTOR)
Clay Hopper– formerly the Associate Artistic Director of Olney Theatre Center and Director of both the National Players and the Summer Shakespeare Festival at OTC. Directing credits include Two Gentlemen of Verona, Twelfth Night, The Tempest, Othello, The Taming of the Shrew, Much Ado About Nothing, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet, and Amadeus. Hopper also directed Farragut North by Beau Willimon and Triumph of Love on Olney Theatre Center’s Main Stage and Call of the Wild, a musical adaptation of Jack London’s novel by Jon Lipsky, first as a workshop at Boston University, then as a touring production for The National Players on tour 59, culminating in the world premiere on Olney Theatre Center’s Main Stage in 2009. Other OTC credits include Clay running the Classic Repertory Company, the flagship education of New Rep Theatre from 2012 – 2016, bringing classic plays and adaptations of 20th-century novels to audiences throughout New England.
David Hirson (PLAYWRIGHT)
David Hirson was born in New York City and was educated at Yale and Oxford. His plays have been produced on Broadway and internationally, receiving nominations for multiple Tony and Drama Desk Awards, and winning numerous honors including the John Gassner Award of the Outer Critics Circle, the New York Newsday/ George Oppenheimer Award, the Marton Prize of the Dramatists Guild, and London's Laurence Olivier Award.
DIRECTOR’S NOTE
Written in 1991, David Hirson’s LA BÊTE is quite frankly one of the the most exquisitely structured plays I have ever come across. Its themes of patronage in the arts and its corrupting influence are eclipsed at this moment in our history by its other and in my view more dominant theme: that of cultural decline caused by corrosion of truth through the abuse of language.
LA BÊTE is a very funny play. Hysterical even. But amidst its wildly lowbrow jokes and it’s incomparable wit, extremely serious ideas are being worked out, brought into conflict with each other at such a high level as to be worthy of George Bernard Shaw.
“Our lives are governed by such foolish men!” Elomire says in act one. “And we’re to blame because misguidedly we hold to the belief that it would be more difficult to keep a fool at bay than to simply let him have his way…That’s when the fool will really twist the knife — when he gets power! And he always does!”
Elomire’s argument reaches its full force in act 2 when he describes this inevitable aggregation of power as being driven by the seductive nature of a world where “Hard facts count less than how they are understood; pretension and truth become confused! The honest Word is violently abused; and when the honest Word is stripped of sense, its form assumes unnatural consequence: the way a thing is stated holds more weight, than what, if anything, one seeks to state.” And such is the world we live in now. When the “narrative” of our news supersedes the facts, when facts themselves are held subjugate to the narrative one wishes to affirm, then the fool is free to weave linguistic tapestries that ensnare rather than illuminate. We elevated and revered the fools that led us here. And this being so, is it no wonder why we never stopped to ask, just who, in fact, is the fool?
-Clay Hopper, Director
LaBête
"La Bête" by David Hirson is a comedic play set in 17thcentury France, known for its witty dialogue and satirical portrayal of artistic rivalry and intellectual pretension. The story revolves around the clash between two characters: Elomire, a respected playwright and leader of a prestigious theater troupe, and Valere, a crude and bombastic street performer who is appointed by the royal court to join Elomire's company. The play explores themes of artistic integrity, the clash between high and low culture, and the nature of creativity. Through a series of hilarious and thought-provoking exchanges, "La Bête" challenges the audience to consider the value of tradition, innovation, and the pursuit of excellence in the arts.
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