“A Journey Into the Absurd” looks deep inside the mind of writer
‘A Journey Into the Absurd’ looks deep inside the mind of writer
Paul Ford and theater go really well together.
That’s why Ford signed on to direct “A Journey Into the Absurd — Short Stories by Eugene Ionesco.”
Ford is returning to Theatre-inthe-Making, a company for which he was the founding artistic director. The production is in celebration of the organization’s 30th anniversary. The six-performance production starts at 7:30 tonight at the Tricklock Performance Laboratory, 111 Gold SW.
“It’s what I do,” he says of theater. “I retired from University of New Mexico and wanted to get back into it.”
Ford says the company is known for producing narrative theater for both youth and adult audiences.
“A Journey Into the Absurd” is an opportunity to produce neverbefore-staged short stories by Eugene Ionesco.
Ionesco is one of the great masters of theater of the absurd, which abandons conventional dramatic form to portray the futility of human struggle in a senseless world.
The short stories take a look deep inside the mind of Ionesco.
They are “Rhinoceros,” “Oriflamme,” “A Victim of Duty” and the monologue “The Slough” and are adapted and staged in the story-theater style developed by Paul Stills.
“I went to school in the era when the absurd was very important,” Ford says. “It’s a great opportunity to bring these pieces to life on the stage.”
Ford is working with a company of 10 actors — some who are from the company’s long history, others are new to the company.
Brennan Foster is going to take on “The Slough,” Ford says.
“I’ve been talking to him about the piece for a while,” Ford says. “We started in serious rehearsals in March.”
The rest of the cast has been rehearsing for five weeks.
Ford enjoys directing with Theatre-in-the-Making.
“It’s a different way of thinking,” he says. “Any director needs to also be a teacher. Bringing a group of people together is a tough thing to do. A director has to be threedimensional so the entire production will be rounded out.”