Keir just recently staged a reading for a new play for the Newtown, Conn. Stray Cats Theatre Company. More below the cut:
Rehearsing with the pros: ‘Butcher’s Cabin’ at Newtown
David Begelman, Theater Critic
Updated 06:31 p.m., Thursday, January 19, 2012
NEWTOWN — You’ve got to hand it to the Stray Kats Theatre Company and its artistic director, Kate Katcher. On what looks like a shoestring and a modest venue in Newtown’s Edmond Town Hall, audiences this past weekend had the privilege of watching professional actors do a staged reading of a new and thought-provoking play.
The drama was “Butcher’s Cabin” by playwright Kent R. Brown, an author of 16 other dramas produced in Canada, Belgium, The Netherlands and Australia, as well as in this country.
The company of two men and three women was led by Keir Dullea, best known for his leading role as Commander Dave Bowman in Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece “2001: A Space Odyssey,” as well as featured roles in many other films and plays.
In “Butcher’s Cabin,” the audience was in for a double treat: viewing performers begin a rehearsal of a play with scripts in hand, followed by a question and answer session with the playwright and his cast.
Amos Butcher (Dullea) is a felon convicted of a double murder who is given a compassionate release from prison due to a terminal illness. He is first seen in a cabin ravaged by inattention and filled with pornographic graffiti, the handiwork of marauding adolescents over the years.
Butcher is irate about the condition of the place, irascibly ordering others he has hired to clean things up. They include an alcoholic housekeeper, Valerie, a hireling who is a good deal short on task diligence and maturity herself, and her son.
The latter is a wastrel whose girlfriend, Jody, is a lesbian stripper who declares she may or may not marry him.
Butcher awaits the arrival of Charlene, whom he intends to marry despite the short time he has to live. Playwright Brown’s drama aims at depicting how all the principals are in various stages of conflict with each other, a tension that begins to dissolve as does the graffiti in a full-scale production.
Another side of Butcher is eventually revealed through sudden hallucinatory episodes he experiences that recall the eventful moments of the crimes for which he was sentenced to prison.
The characters, despite being members of a Tennessee underclass, draw together after Amos’ revelations. Jody performs the marriage ceremony of Amos and Charlene, while other characters join in the celebratory mood.
The drama is a work in progress for the playwright, the theme of which brings to mind one of Shakespeare’s observations: “How oft when men are at the point of death have they been merry.”
Dullea was capably assisted in the rehearsal by Katie Sparer, Kim Maresca, Emilie Roberts and Michael Wright, all of whom contributed solidly to the effort. Future productions at the theater include “Seascape,” “Wonderful World” and “The Subject Was Roses.”
“Butcher’s Cabin” was performed Saturday in the Alexandria Room of Edmond Town Hall, 45 Main St., Newtown. Tickets were $25 by reservation, $30 at the door. For details on future productions, call 203-514-2221 or visit www.straykatstheatrecompany.org.
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Looks like Keir’s keeping busy these days with theatre projects. I’d love to see this one, it sounds amazing. That description of Keir’s character being surrounded by pornographic graffiti and the fact he’s playing a convicted murderer. A combination of both makes this play a winner with Keir’s exceptional talent.
