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photo by Bret Brookshire

Lust Supper

written by kirk lynn | directed by sarah richardson

About The Show

Part I in Lynn’s Faminly Trilogy.

Here’s what I want y’all to know about The Faminly Trilogy.  First, it is spelled correctly.  It’s supposed to be Faminly.  A combination of Famine and Family, making a new adverb describing how we maintain our small tribes here in the western half of the twentieth century. Second, all three plays take place around a dinner table and involve a bottle of wine as a key component.  Other than that they do not share the same characters, a continuation of plot, or even the same theme.  But while they do hold their own ground as individual plays, not requiring a synopsis of one to enjoy the other two, they are related.  Lust Supper begins the trilogy with the questions of power and position. Each person in the family has his/her own vision, drawing, plan, or concoction describing his/her own view of what this family looks like. The images are in competition as everyone seeks to define their place at the table.  Crucks takes over with the idea of meaning. If everyone is allowed an equal position, how will we decide what gets served?  Or if all voices are equal, who will decide what gets said. It comes off less dry than all that by masquerading as a mystery. Galen, a crippled old man confined to a wheelchair details the night he, his older brother and sister, and his younger brother and sister were reunited at his house. A murder took place. The clues: a bottle of wine and a bow and arrow. The motive: a tidy inheritance. Crucks puts a visual twist on the traditional mystery. The story of the play is repeated in its entirety in each of the play’s five scenes; but in each scene, a different part of the stage is hidden from the audience’s view. As different portions of the stage are covered and revealed, clues appear, disappear, and contradict one another. A whodunit that works as a visual puzzle as well as a psychological one. Finally Salivation ends the whole mess.  Given a basic equality and a consensus of meaning, what to do next?  Salivation centers on the insatiable hunger of Martha, a woman pregnant with her first child. Tom, Martha’s husband, has just lost his job and can keep neither the cupboards full nor his ever-expanding wife sated. It’s up to the grandparents-to-be to procure victuals for the ravenous Martha by any means necessary. As the story progresses, so does Martha’s girth, reaching enormous extremes which can only be abated by the birth of a little child. Salivation is a twisted, raucous folk tale celebrating birth and creation. Thanks for supporting Rude Mechanicals in this daunting proposition.  Tell your own sick family and twisted friends about our insane theatre of oddities and perversions. The above descriptions are in no way binding.  — Kirk Lynn

Creation Support:

This play received no private foundation or government support. Thank you, arts patrons!

Press

Reviews:

To reach for the obvious conclusion, this is a show with heart, the kind that is vital to survival because it delivers fresh blood, has been brilliantly cut from its dark cavity to illustrate what goes on beneath the surface, and takes itself just seriously enough to do its job efficiently. But there are other less cheesy realities that lurk just below Lynn’s hysterical surface that wait to snatch your own heart in their jaws.” — Adrienne Martini, The Austin Chronicle, Lust Supper: Delivering Fresh Blood

It’s not your ordinary meal, but it’s one you won’t soon forget. Bon appetit.” — Jamie Smith Cantara, The Austin American-Statesman

Won “Outstanding Director of a Comedy” – The Austin Critics’ Table Awards 1998

Won “Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy” – The Austin Critics’ Table Awards 1998

Nominated for “Outstanding Lead Acress in a Comedy” and “Oustanding Original Script” – The Austin Critics’ Table Awards 1998

Nominated for “Outstanding Original Script” and “Outstanding Director” – The 1998 B. Iden Payne Awards

Production History

November 6 – 22, 1997 at Hyde Park Theater

directed by Sarah Richardson

stage managed by Tamara Klindt

set design by Madge Darlington

costume design by Sarah Richardson

makeup design by Leslie Bonnell

lighting design by Brad Wilson (operator Greg Janacek)

original sound composition by Quintet Lumiere:

Robert Kennedy • C. Goldblatt • Jacob Green • Brent Fariss • Amy Shillinglaw

running crew: Suzanne Rollen

Set & Costume Construction: Marit Aagaard-Mundy, Kathryn Blackbird, Catherine Glynn, Jose Hernandez, Stan Kern, Lana Lesley, Kirk Lynn, Michael Mergen, Lisa Moore, Gavin Mundy, Robert Newell, Shawn Sides, Douglas Taylor, Jon Watson

Featuring:

Catherine Glynn

Marc Balester

Douglas Taylor

Edi Patterson

SETTING

The dining room of a well-to-do house.  The room represents separate rooms in separate houses that have been furnished in exactly the same manner.

SCENE BREAKDOWN

SCENE I:Willsom’s House, 8:15 pm

SCENE II:Naomer’s House, 8:15 pm

SCENE III:Willsom’s House, 9:00 pm

SCENE IV:Willsom’s House, 9:30 pm

Special Thanks

Our special thanks to: Jon Watson for his organizational zeal, all of our box and house volunteers – you rock,  Forrest Novy for lending his skill saw, Don Day and Zachary Scott Theatre for a thousand little things, Frontera @ Hyde Park for sharing their space and cheering us on, Jennifer Hoffman for photographic prowess on such short notice, Dr. Kelly Hale for the junkie’s wet dream, Ron Marks for crash Photoshop advice, Minuteman Press, Adam Callaway for shearing Katie, Sean Hill for highball glasses, St. Edward’s University Costume Shop, Santa Fe Optical – the new store at Westlake Village, and Leslie Bonnell for expertly babysitting a newbie costume designer and gobs of good advice.

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Production Stills

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