After nearly 100 productions of the play around the world, including two by the Royal Court Theatre in London, Soho Rep and The Play Company, in association with John Adrian Selzer, will present the New York premiere February 1—26, 2012. Former Soho Rep Artistic Director Daniel Aukin (4000 Miles) will return to direct The Ugly One as part of Soho Rep’s 35th Anniversary season. Aukin directed Alexandra Cunningham’s No.11 (Blue and White) for The Play Company in 2002, so The Ugly One marks his return to both companies.
About the show: Early in Marius von Mayenburg’s darkly comic play The Ugly One, the protagonist, Lette, learns for the first time that he is unspeakably ugly. He is a talented engineer, but his boss refuses to send him to an upcoming convention to present his work. When Lette demands to know why, he finds out: “You are ugly. It’s a fact. I can’t believe you didn’t know.” What unfolds over the remainder of Mayenburg’s one-hour satire is a sharp, uniquely theatrical perspective on identity as Lette is thrown into a world where nothing is as it seemed.
The New York premiere production features Alfredo Narciso (The Motherf**ker with the Hat on Broadway, After with Partial Comfort, The Misanthrope at NYTW, Edgewise with The Play Company) as Lette. Lisa Joyce (La Bete on Broadway, That Pretty Pretty at Rattlestick), Steven Boyer (Hand to God at EST, The Coward at LCT3, Enjoy with The Play Company) and Andrew Garman (Burning at The New Group, A Bright New Boise at Partial Comfort) play eight roles between them. The creative team includes Eugene Lee (set design), Theresa Squire (costume design), Matt Frey (lighting design) and Matt Tierney (sound design). Maja Zade translated the play to English.
Performances will take place Tuesday-Sunday at 7:30 P.M., and Saturdays at 3:00 P.M. at Soho Rep (46 Walker Street). Tickets are $30—$40 ($15 student rush) and are available at www.sohorep.org, www.playco.org and 212.352.3101.
This production marks the return of Soho Rep’s 99¢ Sundays: Tickets for all Sunday performances are just 99¢ at the box office on the day of the show. Critics are welcome as of the 3:00 P.M. performance on Saturday, February 4 for an official opening on Tuesday, February 7.
The New York premiere of The Ugly One follows much acclaim for its two producers’ recent work: Soho Rep just concluded its celebrated co-production of Elective Affinities (with piece by piece productions and Rising Phoenix Repertory), and The Play Company garnered an OBIE and rave reviews for Jonas Hassen Khemiri’s Invasion!
Through Soho Rep’s FEED program and The Play Company’s IDEA LAB, there will be several post-performance discussions and a variety of online multi-media content aimed at enriching the audience’s experience for The Ugly One. Details will be announced soon.
About Marius von Mayenburg (Playwright)
Marius von Mayenburg was born in Munich in 1972. He is a playwright, translator, dramaturg, director and one of the most widely produced German playwrights. He attended the Royal Court Theatre International Residency for Young Playwrights in 1998, the same year in which he became a member of the artistic direction team at the Baracke, the studio theatre of the Deutsches Theatre in Berlin. In 1999 he went with Tomas Ostermeier to work as Playwright-in- Residence and Artistic Director respectively at the Berliner Schaubuhne am Lehniner Platz. His plays receive regularly productions at the Schaubühne/Berlin, the Royal Court Theater/ London, and other major theaters around the world. In 1992, Mayenburg began his studies in dramatic writing at the Academy of the Arts in Berlin. His first play Fireface (Feuergesicht), written in 1997, was an enormous success. It premiered at the Kammerspiele in Munich and was subsequently produced at the Kleist Theater in Frankfurt (Oder) and at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg. Since then the play has been successfully produced worldwide and translated into many languages. For Fireface, Mayenburg received the Award for Emerging Playwrights (Kleistförderpreis für junge Dramatiker) and the prize of the Frankfurt Writer’s Foundation (Preis der Frankfurter Autorenstiftung). Mayenburg’s oeuvre includes more than ten plays; all of them have been produced in Germany as well as worldwide. He is currently dramaturg and playwright in residence at the Schaubühne/Berlin. The Ugly One had its English language premiere in 2008 at The Royal Court in London.
