God is just!? Actors Lab presents JB
By Murray Kamelhar

Actor’s Lab
JB
Mon, Mar 3–Sat, Mar 8, 8pm
Teatro Santa Ana
Biblioteca Pública
Reloj 50A
50 pesos

“If God is just, then the slaughtered children were rotten with sin.” If God is just, then, “must we bear the burden of the world’s malevolence for God… who made the world?”

These are questions thrown at Job by his wife, Sara. Job and Sara are presented by Archibald MacLeish in his Pulitzer Prize-winning play, JB. The play, originally presented on Broadway with a cast of 36 has been edited to a cast of four (losing none of its power) with the audience representing the eternal children of Job. We ask: “Where is God in today’s world? Can we not summon him to account?” Tough questions are thrown out and answered in JB by a cast of talented actors.

Actor’s Lab presents Harry Coopersmith, Jeff Garrett, Cleo Stevens-Kamelhar and Frank Simons in JB, edited and directed by Murray Kamelhar, Monday, March 3 through Saturday, March 8 at 8pm, and Sunday, March 9, at 5pm, at the Biblioteca’s Teatro Santa Ana, Reloj 50A. Tickets for Monday will be 50 pesos and Tuesday through Sunday will be 100 pesos, available at the theater box office.

An enjoyable journey: Travels with My Aunt
By Fran Rowe

Theater
Travels with My Aunt
Tue–Thu, March 4–6, 7pm
St. Paul’s Church
Cardo 6
Donation 20 pesos

Graham Greene called Travels with My Aunt the only book he ever wrote purely for fun. Frequently compared by critics to the lively, celebratory Mame!, the romping, globe-trotting tale of Henry Pulling—a middle-aged bachelor awakened to the possibilities of his own life by none other than his septuagenarian aunt—has captured the imagination of all who encounter it. In the late eighties, Giles Havergal adapted the 1968 play book and it has been delighting audiences ever since. 

Travels with My Aunt will be read by four actors who perform 25 different characters, including the bachelor Henry Pulling, Aunt Augusta, Wordsworth (Augusta’s “consort”), Tooley the hippie, dubious character Mr. Visconti, the spinsterish Miss Keene, O’Toole from the CIA and a host of other characters who pop into the story along the way. Henry has never ventured far from home and his dahlias until, at his “mother’s” funeral, he is reunited with his ever-interesting Aunt Augusta. From London they soon take off together for Brighton, Boulogne, Istanbul, Asunción and other exotic ports of call.

Henry has always played it safe; after all, he spent his entire life as a banker. He finds himself involved with possible drug deals, art thefts, suitcases of smuggled cash, Nazi collaborators—way more than he ever imagined when he was back home tending his dahlias.

The story has deep roots in Greene’s travels and his writing. Many of his novels and other books derived from the politically motivated journeys he undertook. From the first time he went abroad as an agent of a foreign government to his later travels to keep tabs on brutal tyrants, Greene found fertile literary ground in his own experiences as a traveler. The play is an extended, elaborate parody. Elements of his best-known works crop up from time to time—there is Brighton from Brighton Rock, the mythically corrupt South America of Our Man in Havana, the shadowy world of spies and betrayal from The Third Man and a trip on the Orient Express from Stamboul Train, his first big hit.

Playreaders Stan Gray, Richard Keene, Tom King and Harriet Vines read the various parts in the play. Bobbie Bell directs, with lights and sounds handled by Irving Kohn and with special assistance from Harriet Vines and Paula Lopuch.