In this line-by-line reinvention of August Strindberg’s classic MISS JULIE, writer and director Robert Cucuzza distills an essential tale of class and sexual power dynamics and transports it to modern-day Pittsburgh. Set during a failed car dealership’s liquidation party, CATTYWAMPUS traces the rise and fall of Julie (Jillian Lauren), the owner’s wife, as she tries to escape the flaccid clutch of her disinterested husband. She sets out to seduce the unsophisticated detailer, Donnie (D.J. Mendel), and gets much more than what she bargained for—a dance partner, a goofy playmate, a cuckold-maker, and a partner in crime. Determined that Donnie and his restored Ford Pinto are her escape hatch out of married misery, she makes a last ditch effort and gambles it all on his cracked plan to relocate to Florida. But in a world that is so economically out-of-whack, she finds that her dreams of escape are no match for what seems like a predetermined fate.
Cucuzza and his collaborators orchestrate an intense rollercoaster ride through distinctly American forms—a sweeping country-western score written by Juli Crockett, Appalachian line dancing choreographed by Jordana Che Toback—along with a combination of naturalistic acting and aggressive physicality that binds Strindberg's characters, both rich and poor, vividly exposing their shared vulnerability in a time of economic collapse.
Robert Cucuzza is an LA-based theater artist and filmmaker whose work has been presented at major theaters and festivals in Los Angeles and New York City, across the country and worldwide. Deemed a "master of mayhem" by The New York Times, his writing and directing work is known for its controlled chaos, imaginative physicality, dark humor, heightened theatricality and high stakes tension. He spent sixteen years in New York producing work with his companies Hangdog Theater and ACME Acting Lab and performing with such vanguard theater artists as Elevator Repair Service and Richard Foreman's Ontological-Hysteric Theater. His new company, Transit Authority, is both a producing organization for his own original work, as well as a chronicle of his past work with his companies Hangdog Theater and ACME Acting Lab. As an actor, he performed in three of Richard Foreman's Ontological-Hysteric Theater Productions, and he is a 13-year company member with Elevator Repair Service, with whom he most recently originated the role of “Tom” in Gatz and played it across the globe.
Jillian Lauren has worked with directors as diverse as Richard Foreman, Steve Balderson, Lynne Breedlove, Austin Young, Michelle Carr and Margaret Cho, performed at spoken word and storytelling events across the country and was a featured dancer with the infamous Velvet Hammer Burlesque. She recently debuted her solo performance piece Mother Tongue, also directed by Robert Cucuzza. She is the author of the New York Times bestselling memoir, Some Girls: My Life in a Harem and her novel, Pretty, was released on August 30.
D.J. Mendel recently presented his solo piece Dick Done Broke at The Bushwick Starr, and also performed in Richard Foreman’s Permanent Brain Damage, Panic! and The Universe, Lucy Thurber’s Monstrosity, Robert Cucuzza’s The Sticky Banister, Karen Coonrod’s Christmas at the Ivanov’s and 31 Down’s Red Over Red. A longtime collaborator with HAl Hartley, D.J. has been in the films Meanwhile, Fay Grimm, The Book of Life, No Such Thing, The New Maths, The Girl From Monday and in Mr. Hartley’s theatrical debut, Soon. As a director, he works regularly with Cynthia Hopkins, Roseanne Cash, Eileen Ivers and DBR.
