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Fragrant
Onion Breath
May, 2008
Greetings!
A
huge thanks to everyone who joined us at L'Etage Cabaret on May 25 for the IRC's
first fundraiser, RAW ONION, America Speaks Out, featuring 16 local actors performing
our favorite Op/Ed pieces from The Onion, America's Finest News Source. The
cast of RAW ONION performed one-night two shows only for full and very enthusiastic
houses. We raised nearly $2000.00, which will help us enormously towards our $9000.00
annual budget. Firstly, a huge thanks to the actors involved in this project,
who donated their time and considerable talents to this event to bring these characters
from The Onion to life, and to Dave Kornfeld at The Onion who gave us permission
to use the material for this event. It's
been nearly two years since we formed The Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium,
with the mission of producing and presenting works from the loosely-defined group
of playwrights from The Theater of the Absurd. We're a company with a very small
budget ($10,00 annually for two shows), and a big list of shows we're planning
to tackle in the next five years. The short list includes Ionesco, Beckett and
Pinter -- whose works you may have seen the IRC present in past Fringe Festivals.
We're also interested in taking on Tennessee Williams, and as we discussed Fringe
2008, decided a good Durang parody would get us in the mood, so we've chosen three
works by Christopher Durang and put them in an evening entitled A Streetcar Named
Durang; Two Burlesques and a Nightmare for Fringe 2008 this September. We'll once
again be hosted by L'Etage Cabaret, and hope you'll join us. When
considering a fundraising event for Fringe 2008, the views of the Op/Ed columnists
from The Onion seemed appropriately ridiculous and fitting as a kick-off for the
Durang show. In absurdist works, oftentimes the language simply isn't sufficient
to convey the existential crises the characters are facing; thus the interminable
silences. In RAW ONION the characters are brimming with twisted feelings and opinions
they express by overloading the void with supercharged words. At
times, the subject matter in RAW ONION is a bit more risqué than what you'll
find in a Beckett or Ionesco play, but when you consider the sheer ridiculousness
of how these characters express their dilemmas, the words seem to lose their charge
and meaning, and absurdity ensues. Many
in the cast and the audience said they hadn't laughed that hard in a long time.
So, given how much fun the actors had, the number of people who weren't able to
attend due to the holiday weekend, and the number of folks who asked us to please
remount the show, we're looking into an October 2008 Two Shows, One Night Only,
RAW ONION Revival. We
hope you'll join us this time around if you missed it. If you were with us, thanks
for your support and tell your friends when the Onion rolls back into L'Etage
for the RAW ONION Oktoberfest. 
Tina
Brock
Artistic Director info@idiopathicridiculopathyconsortium.com | 
