2015-257-E Arts - Deep Dish Theater Company Arts Grant

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DocuSign Envelope ID: F859AB28-066D-45E9-BB24-D873BDC015A0 Dishonesty is an artform in Deep Dish Theater Company's The Liar; Hairspray comes to Temple Theatre By Byron Woods @byronwoods r a (7„ Photo by Jonathan Young Rebecca Bossen and Maryanne Henderson in The Liar Write to the editor THE LIA Deep,Dish Theater Company 20 H� 1 S Estes Dr Chapel II 919968 1.515 vvv�rwdeepdshtheater.org Through.May You know, a play about lies(and the lying liars who tell them, inSenator Al Franken's immortal words) cuts a bit close to the bone for us theater critics.We reward the most accomplished liars—those stage artists who best convince us that they are who they are not—as a matter of professional practice. You could say that our job comes down to vetting the best lies in town on any given week—and then recommending them,wholeheartedly, for your consumption. It is comforting to note that Dorante,the main character in French playwright Pierre Corneille's 17th-century farce THE LIAR(Deep Dish Theater Company), appreciates these subtle nuances as well. At first, actor Roman Pearah's nimble character seems a run-of-the-mill cad—a new-in-town jasper who may have just enough wit to flimflam his way into a lucrative arranged marriage with a local swell's daughter. But as adapter David Ives unfolds this tangled story, Dorante takes on an existential hue: less Groucho Marx and more Albert Camus. By then, he's spun a tale to the credulous Alcippe (Scott Nagel)of a boating tryst to end all water-borne seductions.When servant Cliton (Matthew Hager)determines it's a lie, Dorante calmly rejoins that"the unimagined life's not worth living." When Alcippe imagines his fiance as the one seduced, he challenges Dorante to a duel. As he narrates it in real-time, as if it were the Mayweather–Pacquiao prizefight, and then recounts the thrilling blood-and-thunder of an equally spurious shotgun wedding, Dorante hasn't just made his own life a bit more interesting. The truth is, he has done the same for ours.