Stage Voices

Mabou Mines’ and Weathervane Productions’ unique celebration of the legendary, late playwright and director María Irene Fornés—a pairing of Philip Glass’ transformation of her five-page play Drowning into an opera and a version of her acclaimed play Mud, both directed by Mabou Mines co-founder JoAnne Akalaitis —returns as part of The Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival. These intimate productions, both with new music composed by Glass, were first presented at Mabou Mines in February, 2020.

For both works, Akalaitis and her collaborators have developed an aesthetic and philosophical framework to honor the homemade quality of many of Fornés’ own stagings—a “production style that understood just how profound stillness, sparseness, and playful humor could be” (Los Angeles Times).  Akalaitis describes these works as “a conversation between the actors, design, the music, the singers, and of course the primary conversationalist in all this is Irene. They are seemingly stylistically very different—with the quotidian atmosphere and language of Mud and the monstrosity of the characters and opaqueness of the poetry in Drowning—but the heartbeat of both these pieces is in the same body.”

SUPPORT FOR MABOU MINES is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, The New York State Council on the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in Partnership with the City Council and Materials for the Arts, The NYC Women’s Fund by the City of New York Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment/The New York Foundation for the Arts, the Axe-Houghton Foundation, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Howard Gilman Foundation JKW Foundation, The NYC COVID-19 Response and Impact Fund in The New York Community Trust, Emma A. Shaefer Charitable Trust, Shubert Foundation, the Tides Foundation and the W Trust.ation, the W Trust and Emma A. Shaefer Charitable Trust.