If you keep your eye on Cincinnati Shakespeare every January, you’ll find less frequently produced classic works onstage. This year is no exception with two programs featuring three memorable scripts being produced in repertory: One evening it’s Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape (from 1958) and Eugene O’Neill’s Hughie (written in 1941, but not performed until 1959), works that director Brian Isaac Phillips says focus on “the idea of loneliness — how we all deal with the emotion and how it affects our lives.” The one-act pieces will alternate with a new translation of August Strindberg’s Miss Julie, a drama from 1888.
The double-bill features veteran guest actor Joneal Joplin, best known locally as Ebenezer Scrooge for eight seasons in the Cincinnati Playhouse’s production of A Christmas Carol. He has also played King Lear (among many roles) at the Cincinnati Playhouse and starred in Copenhagen at Ensemble Theatre and Long Day’s Journey into Night at CSC. Miss Julie, a critique of class and status, features Hayley Clark (pictured), a five-year CSC veteran, in the role of a blue-blooded woman who has an affair with her father’s valet. The cast also includes CSC regulars Kelly Mengelkoch and Matthew Lewis Johnson.
The Studio Series runs through Feb. 14. $20-$26. Read a review of Miss Julie here and Krapp’s Last Tape/Hughie here.
This article appears in Jan 13-19, 2010.
