| Name | Heartbreak House |
| Address | 1419 N. Topanga Canyon BlvdTopanga, CA 90290 |
| Brief Description | “A Fantasia in the Russian Manner on English Themes” |
| Type | Activity |
| Category | Theatre |
| Description | Shaw’s epic masterpiece and prophetic depiction of a society teetering on the brink. Young Ellie Dunn is invited to the country home of the eccentric Captain Shotover by his daughter Hesione. Soon the family is divided over Ellie’s decision to marry for money, not love. But despite the brilliant debates about politics, economics, desire, war, education, religion and science, they are all ignoring the greater cloud that is looming. Written before World War I, Shaw said about the play, “It has more of the miracle, more of the mystic belief in it than any of my others.” On Fridays Aug. 31, Sept. 7 and Sept. 14, Theatricum will serve “British Pub Grub” dinners in the theater’s adjacent gardens at 6:30 pm, followed by an 8 pm performance. (Separate admission, or combination packages available).
Artist, socialist, feminist, anti-war activist, vegetarian, freethinker, street-corner orator and all-around raconteur… if there’s one playwright who belongs at Theatricum Botanicum, it’s George Bernard Shaw. Shaw’s incisive wit and intellectual pyrotechnics light up the stage as his irascible characters challenge social conventions, sexual mores, moral hypocrisy and political folly. Best known as a playwright, Shaw was also a prodigiously prolific novelist, critic, essayist, pamphleteer, politician and public speaker. He penned more than 50 plays, at least a dozen of which are still regularly performed today.
“The time seems unusually ripe for Heartbreak House, perhaps Shaw’s richest and saddest play about the follies of humanity,” The New York Times remarked recently. “Shaw’s extravagantly comic but still human characters are men and women with eloquent tongues and ever-ready opinions who also have hearts capable of breaking and souls worth saving… Almost a century after it was written, Heartbreak House proves a keen comic rebuke to cynicism, self-indulgence, and detachment, those all too easy responses to the bitterness of the world.”
Heartbreak House opens on Saturday, June 9 through September 30. Tickets are $20-$33. The Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum is located at 1419 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd., Topanga, CA, 90290. Audience members are advised to dress casually (warmly for evenings) and bring cushions for bench seating. For reservations and information, call 310-455-3723 or go to www.theatricum.com
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| Phone 1 | (310) 455-3723 |
| Handicapped Accessible | Yes |
| Cost | $20-$33 |
| Hours | Please visit the website for detailed show times |
| Website | www.theatricum.com |
| Last Updated | 6/4/2012 |
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