A Strindberg Sonata

by Emilio Williams

with Ricardo Birnbaum, Heather McDevitt Barton and Martha Reddick

Directed by Ricardo Birnbaum

Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
August 20, 21 and 22 at 8pm

The Clarence Brown Lab Theatre

1714 Andy Holt Avenue, Knoxville, TN

Rehearsals

Martha Reddick is a graduate in the education program at the University of Tennessee. She is currently interning as a 10th grade English teacher at Bearden High School. She was most recently seen as Ela Delahey in Charley’s Aunt at the Clarence Brown. She also played the Flower Woman in A Street Car Named Desire. Past Clarence Brown roles include: Emily in The Marriage of Bette and Boo and Romaine Patterson in The Laramie Project. She would like to thank Kate for this wonderful opportunity, her teachers for their insightful guidance, and her friends and family for their never ending support. Thank you for coming and she sincerely hopes you enjoy the show!

Heather McDevitt Barton

Heather McDevitt Barton is a fresh graduate of the University of Tennessee. At UT, she earned two bachelor of arts in Theatre and English Literature. Heather has been telling stories since she can remember and is indescribably excited to be part of this project. Love to both Ricardo and Martha for their creativity, love, and hope. I so hope you enjoy the show.

Ricardo Birnbaum (Actor/Director)

Ricardo Birnbaum is a second year MFA actor at UT. Born in Spain, Ricardo has worked in the UK, Spain and the US.

He will be in the CBT next year playing Jacob Marley and Old Joe in A Christmas Carol, and will be part of the ensemble production of Woyceck directed by John Sipes.

His stage credits include Julius Caesar directed by Deborah Warner for the Barbican Theatre and Cardenio Project, for Harvard University.

His most recent film credit is Mr. Nice directed by Bernard Rose. In Spanish television he has had numerous supporting roles, his last one in Lalola for A3 TV. He is thrilled to be in this part of the world dwelling deeper into his craft.

About the play

Actor/Director Ricardo Birnbaum presents the US premiere of “A Strindberg Sonata”, a night of 5 one act plays by award-winning Spanish playwright Emilio Williams.

“A Strindberg Sonata” opened in 2007 in Madrid’s Alternative Theater Festival. The show went on to perform in Universidad de Salamanca, the so-called Oxford of the Spanish-speaking world. Three of the pieces were also presented in the prestigious Off-Avignon Festival in France.

The English version of the show has received dramatized readings in New York, Baltimore and Mary Washington University, in Virginia.

The bare to bones, one hour show jumpstarts with a new version of August Strindberg’s turn of the 19th century classic “The Stronger.”

This influential piece, in which one actress speaks incessantly while “the other woman” who has the affection of her husband remains deadpan silent, inspired the author to write four additional pieces. All of them share the principles of “intimate theater” as delineated by Strindberg. The show becomes a chamber piece, at time side-splitting, at times devastating, where words and silence craft the music, while the three actors on stage becomes the sole instrument.

In “Damned Cordelia!” Goneril has, finally, a chance to explain her part in Shakespeare’s King Lear. The result is a hilarious monologue in which one of the most reviled characters in theater’s history tries to vindicate herself and place all blame on her father and two sisters.

In “The Hole” a young Spanish actress in New York vents her professional frustrations with her younger brother who has come to visit her in a sublet that is falling to pieces, literally.

In the dramedy “The biography” a Spanish Grande Dame of the Avant-garde theater reveals thorny family secrets while giving an interview to an American visiting professor.

“Tomorrow will be worse” is a choral monologue that ties and unties a true to life case in which a Canadian citizen was wrongly accused of being involved in terrorist activities and rendered by the US government to Sudan to be tortured. The victim, his wife, a journalist, a judge, an American senator and even a former US Secretary of Justice share the stage with the writer and actress in this heartrending monologue.

About the playwright

Emilio Williams was recently featured at the Cervantes Institute of New York as one of the most promising new voices in the Spanish stage. The opening of his first play, A Strindberg Sonata, in the United States culminates a fantastic year for this playwright.

In June, his latest play, Medea Vindicada, opened in Madrid in June to sold-out audiences. The play, a one woman show, is a both parody and a tribute to Euripide’s classic Medea.

Earlier in the year, his comedy “Tables and Beds” was selected among 80 plays from 12 countries the winner of the 4th Premio el Espectáculo Teatral. The play opened during Madrid’s Alternative Theater Festival to both audience and critical acclaim.

Emilio Williams was born in Madrid. After the indie success of “Sonata a Strindberg” (2007), the author followed up with “If I lived, it was for a reason” (2008) a documentary play about the drama of political refugees in Spain. It opened at the Casa Encendida, an iconic civic center in Madrid.

The interest of Emilio for documentary theater is rooted in his years of work as a journalist. He worked for CNN in Atlanta and Washington, and was a freelance theater critic in Chicago. Since 2001, he has worked for Johns Hopkins University.

His contact is emiliow@aol.com