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Marathon comes to Stoneham
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The runners for the Boston Marathon are not the only ones who are lacing-up in preparation; Mike Bash and Ben Chase have been cast as Mario and Steve in Stoneham Theatre’s production of Edoardo Erba’s Marathon, a physically demanding play about two men training together for a run of a lifetime. The director had to cast two men who are fit enough to run the entire duration of the play while still engaged in constant discourse, allowing the focus of the play to be on the dialogue and not only the physical movements of the actors.
Visually, the play is simple: just two men running and talking together one evening. The set is bare; the stage, as Director Josiah George puts it is “just a blackness.” The director has chosen to rely on sound and lighting for dramatic effect and to keep the stage humble to direct the audience’s attention to the dialogue. George feels that, “the script does well to help establish who these two men are.” As the audience becomes more familiar with the men, the play draws them to a darker place. What George is striving to accomplish as a director is for the audience to, “think about what their own journey might be during the journey of the play.” He wants the themes brought up in the play to leave the confines of the theatre and to be questioned and discussed by the audience members. He suspects that each audience member will interpret the ending in different ways, but he hopes that they are all “moved with some deeper question.”
Marathon, written by Edoardo Erba and adapted by Israel Horovitz is being directed by Josiah George as part of Stoneham’s Emerging Stages series. The series is designed as an outlet for the greater Boston area to view new works performed and directed by up-and-coming artists. This play has been performed at the Stoneham Theatre before, but it is being brought to life again in order to coincide with The Run for Stoneham Theatre, a marathon campaign in which Weylin Symes, the theatre’s Artistic Director, and the theatre’s General Manager, Matt Chapuran, will be running in the Boston Marathon.
Marathon runs Thursday March 11 through Sunday March 21. For ticket information call the box office at (781) 279-2200 open Tuesday through Saturday 1–6pm, or visit www.stonehamtheatre.org.