SOLO TAKES ON 2: A Festival of One-Person Shows
Swain Hall, UNC Chapel Hill
Jan. 25-30
“One of the first things I ever did in my career that just exploded—kaboom!—was a one-person show called MEN ON THE VERGE OF A HIS-PANIC BREAKDOWN,” director Joseph Megel recalls during a rehearsal for the second season of SOLO TAKES ON, a festival of solo performances this week in Swain Hall at UNC Chapel Hill. Megel speaks with some authority on the genre; under his direction, BREAKDOWN had award-winning runs in Los Angeles and off-Broadway in New York.
“So let’s put it on the table—solo performance can be deadly," he asserts. "It can be boring and lot of talk. But when it’s done well, it can be one of the most exciting types of performances for an audience, an incredibly intense and intimate experience that engages with them in more personal ways than they might be in a regular stage play, and asks more of them.”
Curating the three one-person shows that make up this year’s festival has meant mentoring a current graduate student and a recent graduate from the Performance Studies program as they’ve developed new scripts exploring the sexuality of drinking bourbon in the South and interrogating the conventions of psychotherapy in the aftermath of sexual assault. It’s also meant hosting visiting artist, playwright and monologist Carlos Manuel, who’s show LA VIDA LOCA probes the culturally schismatic experiences of a gay Hispanic immigrant within the frame of the tale of “La Llorona,” the “crying woman” in Mexican folklore.
“One of the things that I love about Carlos’ work,” notes Dr. Ashley Lucas, professor in UNC’s Department of Dramatic Arts and Latina/o Studies Program, “is that it’s incredibly funny, but in a way that makes you think about the political issues he’s addressing. LA VIDA LOCA is about his journey to the United States when he was 8 years old and undocumented, as his family gets caught as they cross the border.
“But he helps give his audiences the sense that not all immigrants are alike. He tells a very poignant story about a young gay man in Mexico who was lynched because he was perceived to be gay. Immigration is not just something that people do because they want American freedoms or American jobs; there are a lot of different, complicated pressures that drive people to feel they need to flee the place they were born.”
Manuel’s LA VIDA LOCA runs in repertory with Gretchen Fox Klobucar’s (G)RAPE and Sean McKeithan’s ON BREATHING IN THE BARREL, through Sunday, in Swain Hall. Tickets for each performance are $5; a Solo Pass covering all performances is $10. Reservations: 919-843-5666 or unccommboxoffice@gmail.com.
The show schedules for the festival follow, after the fold:
Tuesday, January 25
5 p.m. G(rape)
Wedneday, January 26
5 p.m. On Breathing in the Barrel (talk back after performance)
Thursday, January 27
5 p.m. G(rape)
7:30 p.m. On Breathing in the Barrel
Friday, January 28
7:30 p.m. G(rape)
9:00 p.m. La Vida Loca
Saturday, January 29
3:00 p.m. G(rape) (talk back after performance)
8 p.m. La Vida Loca
10 p.m. On Breathing in the Barrel
Sunday, January 30
3:00 p.m. On Breathing in the Barrel
