Drummer Wanted

Frank is a rock drummer, a good-for-nothing well into his twenties. He still lives with his mother, who plays the piano and, like her son, occasionally bursts into song. But their happiness, sham as karaoke, veils a festering unease. The author and director Richard Maxwell creates his characters in his familiar style: flat and bone-dry, and thus irresistibly comical.

The New York writer and director Richard Maxwell calls his pieces musicals, but they have little in common with Broadway. Maxwell made his first appearance at the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago in the early nineties, but has now worked for some time in New York, at The Kitchen and PS 122 among other places. In 1999 he received an Obie Award for his last production, House.

Maxwell keeps all superfluous frills out of his script, acting and design and, with a minimum of words, emotion and movement, creates hyper-stylised theatre with an irresistibly witty effect. In his own words, “In my plays I try to come as close as possible to neutrality. I want my actors to speak their lines unmoved so that the audience has to fill in the empty spaces themselves.” The Village Voice wrote, “Maxwell tears the mask off theatre and reveals a truth that is seldom seen on stage.”

In 2000 Maxwell was a guest at the Kaaitheater Studios with his production Showy Lady Slipper. The Village Voice wrote, “Maxwell tears the mask off theatre and reveals a truth that is seldom seen on stage.”

In 2001 Maxwell and companions were at the Kaaitheater with their postmodern tear-jerker Boxing 2000.  A large part of the performance was set in a boxing ring and the actors really punched one another. According to The New York Times however, ‘The usual ringside patter is here delivered with the conviction of old porn stars simulating sex.’

EXTRA: Free concert on March 24th after the performance (22h). Please, click here for more information.