Theater Grottesco celebrates 25 years of boisterous, joyous, cutting edge physical theater by unveiling a landmark new production, its largest show to date, its latest dark full length comedy exploring themes of marginalization, power and class.

Grottesco's 12th Night turns Shakespeare's well-known romantic comedy upside down and inside out transforming it into a social comedy and finally a tragic-comedy. In Grottesco's version the estates have crumbled, royalty hides in their suites licking the wounds of their obsessions while the servants dutifully pack up the houses, preparing for imminent uncertainty - leaving the only homes they have known for an unknown world with scant opportunity. Still, they can't help amusing themselves by re-enacting the story, the real love story of the Countess Olivia, Duke Orsino and Viola, the mysterious eunuch who washed up on the beach one day to serve the Duke.

Guided by Artistic Director John Flax, in collaboration with the Ensemble, Grottesco creates a chorus of Samuel Beckett-like clowns who were there and know all too well, the story behind Shakespeare's play. Juxtaposing a poetic, bawdy and unexpectedly touching inarticulateness with Shakespeare's verbosity, and simmering it in breath-taking imagery, puppetry and dance, Theater Grottesco creates a visual and aural feast befitting a 12th Night Mediterranean celebration and 25 years of deeply moving theater. Grottesco's 12th Night: infusing the silly with the sublime.

Premiering at the Santa Fe Opera. September, 2008.

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