THE EVENT
written and directed by JOHN CLANCY - performed by DAVID CALVITTO - November 2010
David Calvitto is the winner of the ADELAIDE FRINGE AWARD BEST PERFORMER 2010 for THE EVENT, Edinburgh Fringe Festival Stage Best Actor 2002 for HORSE COUNTRY, Audience Favorite Award for 12 ANGRY MEN, 2003 Edinburgh Festival
A man stands in a pool of light in front of a room of suddenly silent strangers.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.
(Pause.)
They watch him, waiting to hear what he will say next.
Seriously. Stop me.
What if everything we believe and experience is an illusion-a fantasy designed to make us forget all that’s important and create a kind of collective amnesia? Are we all alone on our own private stages? Is there anything out there in the darkness? Are we who we say we are, or are we just pretending?
A deceptively simple piece of theatre, which playfully but profoundly leads us to question, not only the nature of reality, but the very nature of existence itself. A man standing in a pool of light wittily deconstructs the theatrical experience while offering parallel insight into modern life.
"An intelligent and exhilarating monologue, performed with a conjurer's elan by David Calvitto .... he stands on stage and deconstructs everything he is doing – the entire theatre-going experience. It's funny and cute, but just when you think you've got the joke, the monologue lurches into darker, more invigorating territory, and you start to realise that the show is deadly serious. ... The Event is a wake-up call to anyone who has ever wondered why it is that we know all the details of Jordan and Pete's marriage breakup, but can't say how many Iraqis have died in the Iraq war. It deliberately and cruelly destroys illusion: it makes us see how the trick is done, and challenges us to rise from our safe seats in the comforting dark and protest." The Guardian
"American David Calvitto performs John Clancy's monologue with aplomb. He's a mix of droll Woody Allen and charming Steve Martin in a nice suit. The play probably won't send us protesting into the streets but its beautifully written and does make you think. How do we know what's real and what's not? It's great fun and, in the hands of Calvitto, highly entertaining." Adelaide Advertiser
"Its observations on theatre itself are so lethally accurate and funny that it's difficult to resist them – Clancy sees his chosen art form steadily, and sees it whole, as it flickers away in a curious corner of our vast electronic entertainment culture. But secondly, within ten minutes of the show's start, Clancy has begun the task of transforming his lone actor in the spotlight into a haunting everyman hero for our times; a man unsure of his own authenticity, haunted by the ageing muscular memory of a time when phones had to be dialed and typewriter keys struck with force, and bewildered and "unmoored" by the collapse of the grand narratives of hope and progress that once used to sustain his performance.
The brilliant Calvitto, never better than in this hugely demanding show, gazes out at the audience, asking if we, too, despite everything, sometimes catch a sense of shape or meaning or coherence beneath all the apparent chaos. But we remain silent, because – as Clancy and Calvitto point out – that is what the convention of the event demands." The Scotsman / Edinburgh
Ein Mann steht allein im Lichtkegel eines Scheinwerfers auf leerer Bühne und spricht klug und mit humorvoller Leichtigkeit über das Theater, über das theatrale Ereignis, über das „Event“. Dabei dekonstruiert er nach und nach das Theatererlebnis und zieht verblüffende Parallelen zu unserem alltäglichen Dasein: Was wäre, wenn alles, woran wir glauben, was uns widerfährt, nur eine Illusion wäre, eine großartige Phantasie, nur erschaffen, um uns all das vergessen zu lassen, was tatsächlich wichtig ist, und eine Art kollektive Amnesie hervorzurufen? Stehen wir am Ende auch nur ganz allein auf unserer eigenen privaten Bühne? Gibt es da noch irgendetwas draußen in der Dunkelheit? Sind wir tatsächlich, wer wir vorgeben zu sein? Oder tun wir nur so? Sind wir vielleicht alle nur gute Schauspieler in einem miserablen Stück?
THE EVENT gehörte 2009 zu den meistgelobten Stücken auf dem Edinburgh Festival Fringe: „Es gibt Einpersonenstücke, in denen der Darsteller begnadet genug ist, sein Publikum festzunageln. Dies ist der Fall bei THE EVENT.“ (The Times) – „Absolut superbes Theater, das noch lange in der eigenen Vorstellung weiterlebt.“ (The Mirror) – „Einer der witzigsten und cleversten Darsteller überhaupt.“ (The Herald)
Der New Yorker Schauspieler David Calvitto wurde für THE EVENT mehrfach ausgezeichnet, zuletzt im März 2010 mit dem Preis für den besten Darsteller beim australischen Adelaide Fringe.