Square One Theatre Company’s 2013-14 Season: A Freud in the Hand is Worth Margulies and a Busch

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There was a time when Square One Theatre Company seasons were anchored by murder mysteries and old community theater staples. The company often took risks, but not across the board.

I’d say that the impending 2013-14 Square One Theatre Company season is remarkable, not just for Square One but for any small community-based company of its size and suburban inclination.

 

The season opens November 1-16 with the psychodrama Freud’s Last Session. Mark St. Germain’s play articulates a discussion between the great Dr. Freud (a few weeks before he dies) and scholar/novelist/theologian C.S. Lewis of Narnia Chronicles fame. The show had a long run Off Broadway, starring Yale School of Drama Mark Dold.

 

February 28 through March 15, 2014:

Time Stands Still by Donald Margulies.

Another recent notable Off Broadway show, which was done in Connecticut recently by TheaterWorks in Hartford. Like Freud’s Last Session, Time Stands Still argues about war, society, loyalty and the meaning of life. Donald Margulies, of course, is a longtime New Haven resident. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Dinner With Friends, which is getting a New York revival in January at the Roundabout Theatre Company.

 

May 16-31, 2014:

Olive and the Bitter Herbs by Charles Busch.

Charles Busch is a New York theater legend, not just for his gay theater flings of the 1980s (including Vampire Lesbians of Sodom and Times Square Angel) and his mainstream hit of the 1990s, The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife. Busch has written (and often starred in, and often starred in in drag) over two dozen plays, and has also written screenplays and novels. He adapted directed a revival of the 1950s musical Ankles Aweigh at Goodspeed Opera House in 1988.

His film Die Mommy Die was directed by Mark Rucker, currently directing A Streetcar Named Desire at Yale Rep. Another Busch film, Psycho Beach Party, starred a young Lauren Graham (a New Haven native), and featured the surf band Los Straitjackets, who turn up regularly at the New Haven club Café Nine—catch them there Sept. 30 under two aliases, The Neanderthals and The Outta Sites.)

Olive and the Bitter Herbs is a recent Busch opus, from 2011, but plumbs a common theme of his work—an aging, opstreperous, self-obsessed actress.

 

Doesn’t that strike you as an intriguing season? From therapeutic introspection to torn-from-headlines social drama to scene-chewing hysterics. These are cool, clever choices which nevertheless play to the strengths of a small company and the established tastes of its audiences.

 

Square One Theatre is selling three-show season subscriptions for $45. Single tix are $20 adults or $19 for seniors and students. (203) 375-8778. www.squareonetheatre.com